There has been a litany of incidents of horrific violence against women and girls in Britain in recent years. The scale of misogyny in London’s Metropolitan Police is on full view following the jailing of two police officers, one for murder and one for multiple rapes. In six months there were 268 new allegations against the Met police for being perpetrators of violence against women and girls (VAWG). Even before these latest figures came to light, there was underreporting of rape and sexual harassment, as women fear they will not be taken seriously. No doubt this will continue to get worse.
Those women who do choose to take action against their abusers face an uphill battle. The number of rape and sexual offence cases waiting in a backlog of trials is at an all-time high, according to research by Rape Crisis, and there are huge delays in trials which are dealing with these serious and traumatising crimes. Rape Crisis points to huge issues in the criminal justice sector including low pay, and high workloads of barristers as adding to the problems. Currently fewer than three in every 100 reported rapes result in a conviction.
According to one recent survey, 97% of young women say they have experienced sexual harassment. This can impact all areas of a young woman’s life. Around two-thirds of girls quit doing sports by age 16. Between 22-28% of women are concerned they will experience sexual harassment or fear for their personal safety while doing sports.
University campuses face an epidemic of sexual harassment. But in the midst of a funding crisis, tackling sexual harassment won’t be a priority for uni bosses, despite the huge impact it can have on students’ ability to complete their education.
Unlike in the US and some other countries, it is clear that in Britain in 2025, none of the main pro-capitalist parties, including Reform UK, are confident to directly attack women’s hard-won rights around abortion. For example, during the general election in 2024, none of the major parties mentioned any policy on reducing the legal limits on abortion. This isn’t because they necessarily support women’s access to reproductive health care, but because they know that such attacks would be unpopular. The chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) put it: “Despite what anti-abortion campaigns would have MPs think, rolling back women’s hard-won rights is not what people at home are interested in.”
Austerity attacks women’s rights
That said, women’s rights in the UK are under attack. Not by legal challenges, but through the pervasive impact of crumbling services and austerity. This is already having a horrendous impact on women’s lives. According to BPAS, around half of women have faced barriers accessing abortion care. Women from Wales and Scotland are often forced to travel to England to access the correct services and, while the procedure is free, they have to pay for transport and accommodation, as well as feeling isolated from friends and family while receiving treatment. Wait times and restrictions, such as the two-doctors policy, also mean that women must make their decisions much earlier than the 24-week cut-off, and are then made to wait for weeks for the care they need.
These all hit the poorest women hardest, and those who already have children. At the same time, women looking for abortion care but living in violent relationships or in families where abortion is stigmatised find it extra hard to access such services.
The poorest women are also hit hardest by the impact of being forced to continue a pregnancy, unable to afford childcare and they can face the two-child benefit cap. A horrendous Tory policy, which the new Labour government has refused to repeal.
It’s estimated that in the last 12 months, as many as 4 million women have found themselves trapped in violent relationships because of financial abuse. Even those who aren’t explicitly trapped by financial abuse can find they have nowhere to go. Women’s Aid research shows that three-quarters of women who lived with or had financial links to an abuser found it harder to leave or were prevented from leaving because of the cost-of-living crisis.
Last year, the outgoing Tory government set up a scheme for one-off payments to help people fleeing violent relationships. The point of the scheme was so people could put down a deposit and replace belongings they had been forced to leave behind, for example. But the scheme is worth a measly £2 million, which probably means it will help about 800 people. Far fewer then the nearly 17,000 women who left a violent relationship but couldn’t access emergency accommodation.
New Labour government
One of Starmer’s new Labour government pledges was to halve domestic violence. But from this government it is little more than words.
Women’s organisations and charities were quick to point out after Starmer and Reeves’s first budget in October that there was little about how the pledge will be met or about the chronic underfunding in the sector.
Socialist Party members have been campaigning alongside domestic abuse workers fighting to save their service, Solace, in Tower Hamlets, east London, which faces cuts and closure.
Labour ministers constantly talk of ‘tough decisions’ but the ‘tough decision’ to leave the sector in a funding crisis will mean that more women and girls are killed, attacked and assaulted. Properly funding legal aid, the justice system, as well as projects to challenge violent behaviour against women are not part of their strict fiscal rules. It’s even more proof that challenging misogyny and its impact on the lives of women and girls is just too expensive for capitalism.
An increase in council funding and a return to building council housing is needed to support women fleeing violence. Nearly half of Rape Crisis centres are expecting to close or reduce services this year because of underfunding. As many as half of councils have said they could potentially serve so-called ‘bankruptcy’ section 114 notices. In this situation, funding to all but statutory services faces cuts. This means a desperate situation for women’s services, as much of what is provided is categorised as non-statutory. Even in councils not threatening section 114 notices, there have already been bonfires of services.
These are many of the practical measures that would give women chance of safety and real opportunities to decide about their futures, including the possibility to have children if they choose.
Bosses’ government
Yet at a time when capitalism, particularly British capitalism, is in profound crisis, it doesn’t matter that chancellor Rachel Reeves is a woman. She represents the interests of the capitalist class, and challenging women’s oppression is not their priority. If you’re balancing the books with cuts to women’s services then you’re balancing it with a threat to women’s lives.
A fight can be waged against this government. The strike wave was proof that in industries where women dominate – including in education, care and health – when we organise, we can force concessions, from the rotten Tories and now from the Labour government.
Since Starmer’s Labour has taken office, the biggest act in defence of women’s living standards was from those who voted against Starmer’s government to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
As the bonfire of public services continues, we need politicians prepared to stand up to Starmer in parliament, backing up a movement led by the trade unions to stop further austerity. A bloc of MPs taking that approach could be an important step in the process of a new mass workers’ party being developed.
A programme to end violence against women and women’s oppression means challenging both women’s living conditions, poverty pay and the housing crisis, while also challenging sexist ideas in society, which are fed by the undermining of women’s services.
