May: Tories “need more women MPs”
The Conservatives need more women MPs in order to attract voters’ support, the party’s most senior female parliamentarian will warn.
Theresa May, who served as the Tory’s first female chairman, will say that the party’s overwhelmingly “white, male” image is turning voters off, during a speech to the Fawcett Society on Saturday.
In reference to the lack of women and ethnic minorities representing the party at Westminster, Ms May will warn that the Conservatives are now facing their own “Clause 4 moment”, similar to when Labour was forced to abandon its commitment to nationalisation in order to attract voters.
She will say that the Conservatives must convince voters that the party has truly changed since its 1997 general election defeat.
The Conservative’s family spokesperson will deride critics who claim that the adoption of a women’s quota when picking candidates would reduce the quality of Tory MPs and accuse them of “living in the dark ages.”
Despite rhetoric during the last Parliament about widening the pool from which candidates are drawn, the Conservatives emerged from the May 5 election with just 17 female MPs – representing just nine per cent of the parliamentary party.
Mrs May is now urging the party to draw up an “A-list” of its 100 most talented potential MPs, of whom 50 should be female.
She will stress that those candidates should be allocated the 100 most winnable target seats to ensure a large influx of Tory female MPs at the next election, expected in 2009.
“We will win more seats, attract more support, take better decisions and form a better government if we have a more even split,” Mrs May is due to say.
“Given that we now see an ethnically diverse society, where women increasingly play a major role, the Conservative party just doesn’t look like the people that it is claiming to represent,” she will add.
“I firmly believe that the Conservative party must accept that it must face up to its Clause 4 moment, and that it will be found in its attitude towards women and ethnic minorities,” Mrs May will conclude.
She will warn that at current rates, it would take the Conservatives 400 years to reach equal representation of men and women in the House of Commons.
