Open Letter to Dawn Butler MP, Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary

Dear Ms Butler

We write to draw your attention to a post on social media in which an elected Labour official replied to a woman bringing unfair dismissal proceedings against her employer with the message “Good. Go fuck yourself.”

The Labour movement has a strong history of supporting the individual’s right to freedoms outside the workplace; indeed, participation in the Trades Unions upon which the movement was founded were often prohibited by employers. Labour exists because of the championing of the worker’s right to an opinion and political activity outside his or her employer’s purview.

It seems that those in authority are too quick to forget this when the worker in question is a woman, and where the elected official prefers the employer’s view to that of the worker. We are deeply concerned at this and at the misogyny of the sexual insult so casually flung. Would you clarify that the Labour Party will not tolerate your Women’s Officers - or indeed any officers - using misogynist terminology to endorse employers censoring their workers’ legitimate opinions?

Yours sincerely

FiLiA Trustees