Women call on MPs to vote vs the Police Bill

We have been campaigning for over a year against both the Police Bill and the Nationality and Borders Bill, from women’s point of view.

You may have noticed that women are at the forefront of peaceful protest against poverty, rape and domestic violence, racism and other discrimination, family justice campaigns, deaths in custody, the climate emergency and the denial of asylum and human rights. At every turn we have faced criminalisation and impunity by police and immigration authorities.

It is an undisputable fact that rape has been practically decriminalised (less than 1% are prosecuted) and that police misogyny and other biases have much to do with it. The public condemnation of police violence against women, including by women officers and wives and partners of male officers who have themselves been victims, has been unprecedented.

The police urgently need to deal with the sexism, racism and homophobia in their ranks, they do not need additional powers they can use against the public. Yet the government insists on pushing through a Bill which will increase their powers, not their accountability, and criminalise those of us who seek redress.

We urge you to vote against the Police Bill, the most repressive legislation many of us have ever seen in the UK. Vote for police accountability not for a police state.

Please see Women Against Rape’s two Opinion pieces published this month about this.

Defending this racist male supremacist force

and

Empathy, compassion and conscientiousness must be valued in the Met Police

See our 2021 statement: Why women oppose the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill.We urge you also to vote against the Nationality and Borders Bill, now in the Lords, which dismantles the protections those of us fleeing persecution, war, rape and violence of all kinds fought to establish since WWII.  Vote for life not death.

Lisa Longstaff, Women Against Rape           Sara Callaway, Women of Colour, GWS