Lucas Versus Sen: the Feminist Wars

A hundred years ago, 50,000 women campaigning for the right to vote staged the Great Suffrage Pilgrimage, marching from gathering points all over Britain to a rally in Hyde Park. Last Sunday morning campaigners set out from Brighton Pier, planning to recreate the week-long historic event.

The walk was organised by activists Lucy Holmes and Maire McQueeney and launched by two seasoned campaigners for women’s rights Labour baroness Joyce Gould – and Caroline Lucas.

Also present, was Purna Sen, the woman who – newly selected as Labour prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Brighton Pavilion – hopes to unseat Brighton’s first Green and only female MP.  Neither of the city’s two male MPs were present, nor were the Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidates recently chosen to oppose them.

The speeches were uplifting.  Women and men of all ages carried banners and sang suffrage anthems and even the less fit amongst us managed to walk to Preston Park. It was an inspirational event. However, I found it sad to be marching alongside Caroline and Purna in the certain knowledge that at least one of these two impressive women will not be an MP after the 2015 general election.

Women MPs are still a small minority of our parliamentarians and few make it onto party Front Benches. Women MPs of independent spirit with an explicit commitment to women’s rights are especially rare. This is one of many reasons why Caroline Lucas has been such a breath of fresh air in Westminster and has won so many ‘new-comer’ awards.

Purna and Caroline have much in common. They’re of similar age, intellectually able and  hold doctorates. Articulate and passionate, they have a track record of campaigning for human rights and against discrimination and violence against women. Both have impeccable progressive credentials and are likely to appeal to the urban intelligentsia which now dominates Brighton Pavilion. The trouble is, it looks to an outsider as if Purna was selected primarily to challenge Caroline Lucas – and this raises difficult questions.

In common with others, I do wonder why Labour in Brighton is quite so committed to beating a strong highly successful woman MP – who is after all both a feminist and a socialist and likely to vote with Labour most of the time. I’ve never had the opportunity to ask Caroline Lucas why, years ago, she chose not to join the Labour Party – or whether she thinks she could ever have progressed or worked effectively within it. However, I think Labour members could usefully ask themselves the same questions. I fear the uncomfortable truth is that as a strong, independent and able woman – and a feminist socialist to boot – she would probably never have been selected as a Labour candidate.

I’m told things have improved since the bad old days of ‘Blair’s babes’ when Alastair Campbell ruled the roost and Labour’s women were mocked and sidelined and rarely promoted. But still I wonder. Was Purna Sen selected because she is self-evidently a supremely good candidate – or because she was considered well-placed to win a cat-fight with Caroline Lucas?

Purna Sen says she wants to stand nowhere else but in her home constituency. However, party organisers know that highly qualified women candidates are notoriously hesitant to promote themselves. Given the desperate need for good women MPs and her outstanding track record, Purna Sen could have been encouraged into a safe Labour seat.

The shameful fact is that she wasn’t.

Published 26 July 2013 Brighton & Hove Independent as Game On! Dr Lucas v Dr Sen