Eleanor Donne, Essex Socialist Party
Twenty months into a Labour government, women’s refuges and related support services are living pretty much the same ‘hand-to-mouth’ existence that they were under the Tories. Women’s Aid, UK charity for domestic abuse survivors, reports that in 2025 government investment fell short by £321 million of what was needed. 15% of respondents to the annual survey of service providers closed or reduced an area of work due to limited funds. Other providers used reserves to avoid cuts this year but will likely run out of money next year. The Labour government has chosen to impose austerity on the most vulnerable in society in order to meet self-imposed ‘fiscal rules’. This has led to women sleeping rough whilst waiting for a refuge place or worse, staying with their abuser for lack of any other choice.
Domestic abuse survivors are spending longer in refuges, ‘blocking’ desperately needed spaces. They can’t move on to a stable home because of a chronic shortage of genuinely affordable housing. Labour councillors have failed over decades to mount a fight for the resources they need to build council homes in their areas. The Labour government’s pledges on house building are largely focused on home ownership. Just 2,260 council homes were built in 2024-25, according to a report from the Common Wealth think tank. The report also claims that eight times that number of council homes will be sold off in 2025-26! What is needed is an end to ‘right to buy’, and above all a mass programme of council house building.
Women’s Aid is also concerned that ‘cash strapped’ local councils are trying to save money by moving to more generic domestic abuse services rather than specialist refuges. Their 2025 survey found that services specific to Black and minoritised women are less likely to be commissioned by local authorities. Outreach services raising awareness of domestic abuse, including lesser-known areas such as financial abuse and coercive control, have been ‘soft targets’ for cuts too.
The Socialist Party campaigns for local councillors that stand up for their communities and resist cuts to jobs and services. Councils should not be imposing cuts on any services! Councillors need to fight for resources from the government to provide housing and decent services for all that need them.
Women’s Aid demands a minimum funding settlement of £516 million per year from the government. They say this would ensure early access to specialist domestic abuse services in England and prevent the constant threat of closure that hangs over refuges. Existing Green, Independent and left Labour councillors should add their voices to Women’s Aid’s demand. They should commit to voting against service and job cuts, and instead fight for needs-based budgets using reserves and borrowing powers where necessary this year to avoid cuts, and build a campaign for these life-saving resources.
On 7 May there will be local elections in 136 council areas, as well as to the Welsh Senedd and the Scottish Parliament. Socialist Party members will be standing for election as part of TUSC – the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition – and are appealing for others to stand too. TUSC candidates pledge to vote against cuts and job losses, and to reject council tax, rent and service charge increases for working-class people.
The TUSC banner is available to all those prepared to take that fighting stance, and can be a way to bring together hundreds of socialists, trade unionists and anti-war activists under the same electoral banner to ‘get socialism on the ballot paper’ on a nationwide scale. (see tusc.org.uk for more info)
The Socialist Party says:
- Fully fund refuges and domestic violence services. Build a mass campaign, mobilising the working class to win the resources we need from a Labour government. This includes standing as many candidates as possible in the May local elections committed to no-cuts, needs-based budgets
- Fleeing domestic abuse should not mean losing a secure home or living in poverty. Build a campaign for a mass council house building programme to meet need. Right to Buy must end
- For a real living wage of at least £15 an hour, with no age exemptions, and living benefits. Scrap the benefit cap
- Cut the rent. We need rent controls set by democratically elected and genuinely representative committees
- Build a united struggle for zero tolerance of sexism and sexual harassment in workplaces, schools and colleges. Trade unions should play a key role campaigning for domestic abuse policies in the workplace, including paid domestic abuse leave
- Campaign for trade unions to stop funding Labour and instead help to build a political party that represents the genuine interests of their members, and the whole working class
- Fight for socialist change in Britain and internationally to end the unequal and exploitative capitalist system that promotes sexism, misogyny and violence against women
Socialist Party public meetings
South East London
South East London Socialist Party’s public meeting included contributions about housing, the dual tasks of paid and unpaid labour, childcare, domestic violence, predatory beauty standards, unequal pay and an overall lack of service provision. It is clear that we cannot rely on Starmer’s pro-capitalist Labour Party, or any other establishment party for that matter, to make life any easier for women and the working class as a whole.
Services face cuts across the board, and none of the establishment parties are willing to provide the funding needed. We discussed how sexist ideas are part of the capitalist system, and that its insidious roots go into the foundations of all aspects of the establishment’s institutions.
In order to build a fairer, more just society for women and all other marginalised groups we must build a political voice for all those struggling against oppression as part of a mass workers’ party which works in the interests of all.
Chloe Leslie
Leicester
Leicester Socialist Party’s meeting included introductions from a student who joined the party in 2025, and a long-time member with a history of fighting for the rights of the working class. We discussed an array of issues which affect working-class women today, including economic disparity, gender-based violence and sexual harassment, and systemic inequality and how many of these issues are a symptom of the capitalist system we live under.
This tied in nicely to the discussion on the origins of International Women’s Day and the wins for women’s struggle in the past, notably the female textile workers who fuelled the 1917 Russian Revolution which paved the way to legal equality, voting rights, and access to education, pioneering early gender reform. We shared ideas and experiences as well as learning about local projects we can collaborate on, reflected on how recent world events have exacerbated women’s struggle, and what we can learn from the past going forwards.
Alanah Carey-Peacher
Liverpool protest
We joined the demonstration making its way through the city centre of Liverpool. The demo provided an opportunity not only to show our support, but also to distribute leaflets along the procession and sell the Socialist.
We ran out of hundreds of leaflets stating that Starmer and sexism have got to go, and sold lots of papers. At the end of the march, we gathered around to listen to speeches, one of which was given by me, stating how in order to eradicate the systematic oppression of women and girls across the world, we must first remove the capitalist system that perpetrates it.
Jess O’Shaugnessy
TUC Women’s Congress discusses workplace struggles
Michelle Greb, WTUC delegate (personal capacity)
The annual TUC Women’s Congress (WTUC) was held in Bournemouth from 3 to 6 March. With roughly 300 delegates, it was an eye-opening experience, dealing with issues working-class women face in their workplaces.
Every trade union that touched on healthcare had horror stories of not just their own members, but of women in the care of their members. And yes, being born female, I have experienced similar through a long life, and it grates! Lower pay, fewer hours, zero-hour contracts, being at the beck and call of emergency scheduling, to the point the needs of family and childcare come a far-distant second. Delegates raised safety issues in high physical stress jobs, where women workers are barely considered, while it’s so easy for men to get safety equipment to fit male bodies.
I spoke to a WASPI Women motion, to garner more support for the plight of some 73,000 women who have died since the Ombudsman’s report came out in 2024. There are millions of women who have died since the first change to the retirement date without recompense for their lost years of a pension plan into which they paid. The motion passed with no nays or abstentions, from PCS policy to WTUC policy.
Through the event I was able to talk with individual delegates, raising socialist ideas, and this was well received. Perhaps in the future, it will be possible to organise a socialist fringe event outlining how the fight for socialist change is part of the fight for women’s rights and equality.
