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Will the UK’s only men’s party get any votes today?

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Last week, the comedian and broadcaster Sandi Toksvig, announced that she plans to launch a feminist, Women’s Equality Party in time for the next election. In the meantime, the UK’s only anti-feminist men’s rights party, led by a former Conservative Party member, will be contesting two seats in today’s general election.

The idea of a  men’s vote has gained little if any traction this election, even though 47% of the 17 million people who didn’t vote last time were men. Neil Lyndon’s Telegraph Men article and the Fatherhood Institute’s report on how the major parties’ manifestoes talk about fathers, being notable exceptions.

Here one of our regular readers, Michael McVeigh, shares his thoughts on the electoral prospects of the UK’s only anti-feminist, men’s rights party.

Election 2015

Are people willing to support the western world’s only declared and unashamed pro-male political party?

Justice for Men & Boys (and the Women who love them) is launching its first foray into UK politics with two candidates standing in the seats at Ashfield & Broxtowe.

The party’s leader, Mike Buchanan, 57, worked most of his life in business including a two year stint in 2006-8 with the Tory Party.  Since 2010 he set about fighting “radical feminism” including writing 3 books & starting the Campaign for Merit in Business in 2012.   J4M&B was registered in February 2013 with the intention of pushing back against what Mike sees as a feminist controlled political system in the UK.

Mike is standing in the constituency of Ashfield which is the current seat of Gloria de Piero, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Women & Equalities, held in the 2010 election by just 192 votes.

Ray Barry, is standing in Broxtowe which is currently held by the Conservative, Anna Soubry, with a 389 majority in the 2010 election.

The party’s manifesto which was published last December has the following issues as its heart:

  • An end to male genital mutilation (circumcision)
  • A presumption of shared parenting after divorce/separation & shared financial responsibility
  • Asset division after divorce to only include assets accrued since the start of the marriage
  • Automatic paternity testing (DNA) on the birth of a baby
  • Limit abortion to a 13 week term
  • Discontinue government support for women to enter STEMM subjects
  • Discontinue affirmative action in employment including women on boards
  • Equal funding for shelters for male victims of DV
  • Help for homeless men
  • Government initiatives to reduce male suicide rates
  • Prison – gender neutral sentencing guidelines
  • Anonymity for men accused of rape
  • More male specific health initiatives
  • Minister for Men to be introduced

For Men’s Rights Advocates, many of these concerns are their motivation & indeed anyone would be hard pressed to rail against most of these issues.  For the general public, however, these issues are probably not as important as things like the NHS, defence, benefits, tax, etc.

Mike has been very successful in attracting lots of publicity by way of appearing in more than 100 television and radio shows to complement his YouTube channel and Blogs.  On the way he has attracted criticism from feminists and derision from traditional political parties.  Typical of some of the critical comments is this piece in The Guardian while a more unusual pro-article written appeared in The Telegraph.

Coming from such an anti-feminist stance, Justice for Men & Boys is bound to find an uphill struggle fighting for votes with many voters seeing an anti-woman party.  But, perhaps there are enough people in Ashfield & Broxtowe who will think that men and boys do face discrimination and have issues which need to be addressed although also realising that a vote for J4M&B will be a wasted vote as there is just a snowball’s chance in hell of either Mike or Ray being elected.  Anyone putting an X in the box will be a person who has very strong beliefs that there is an imperative need for such a party getting support.  Mike’s target figure of 400 votes is not unachievable.

So the question is – will Mike achieve a sufficient number of votes in these 2 constituencies to set his party far enough above what the Monster Raving Looney Party would get?  Are there enough ordinary people who feel strongly about men’s issues to use their precious vote to make a point?

I await the results from these two constituencies and wonder if there will be but a derisory 10 or 20 votes or will Mike get over 100.

There is no greater power than “the ordinary five eighths” exercising his or her voice in a democratic election and when polling closes and our fellow citizens have had their say, the number of votes which Justice for Men & Boys attain will be a gauge of support for the simple idea that men and boys are in crisis and need help from government.

Michael McVeigh, loves the sea where he works & interested in areas where men & boys are losing out due to society’s apathy towards males. 

insideMAN does not support a specific political party and we are happy to receive articles about men, masculinity and manhood from writers of all political political parties 

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

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Welsh gender politics putting male and female victims at risk says men’s charity

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The Welsh government is putting male and female victims of domestic violence at risk by failing to manage a gender political row that has broken out in the principality over proposed legislation designed to tackle violence in Wales, campaigners have claimed.

Legislators in Wales initially planned to introduce a Violence Against Women (Wales) Bill to tackle domestic violence and other forms of abuse against women and girls. Advocates for male victims claimed the legislation excluded men and boys and the Welsh government responded to these concerns by changing the title to the Gender Based Violence, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Bill.

The move has angered advocates on both sides of the gender political debate with Welsh Women’s Aid, which plays a key role in the Wales Violence Against Women Action Group, leading the call for the Bill to revert to its original name, the Violence Against Women (Wales) Bill.

According to Paul Apreda, National Manager of FNF Both Parents Matter Cymru (a charity with links to Families Need Fathers  in England), the name of the bill is somewhat irrelevant as The Welsh Government’s plans are clearly focussed towards a Violence against Women agenda, but run the risk of failure because of an ill-conceived attempt to make them appear gender inclusive.

Women’s groups downplay problems facing men

According to a press release issued by Apreda last week,  pressure to recognise male victims within existing women’s services has resulted in a zero-sum game of men’s groups calling for equality of approach which have been countered by women’s groups downplaying the extent of the problem facing men.

Apreda took the unexpected move of backing Women’s Aid’s request for the Bill to focus on women and girls and called for the Welsh government to develop an additional strategy for helping men and boys.

“Having read through the consultation responses received from a variety of Women’s support groups we understand their concerns about commissioners ‘coercing’ women-only DV services to open their doors to men,” said Apreda. “We share their worry about the dilution of the focus on protecting women and girls – and have come to the conclusion that the Welsh Government has completely miscalculated with this proposal.”

‘We believe that if the Welsh Government fails to put forward a credible, realistic, appropriately funded and timely response for male victims they will be in breach of UK legislation on Gender Equality,” said Apreda. “We stand ready to work with Welsh Government on this separate agenda and we hope we can count on the support of Welsh Women’s Aid to return the support we’re giving them now”.

Lies, damn lies and statistics

However, any hopes that Women’s Aid would support the development of a separate strategy to help male victims were deflated when it was revealed that the charity had made a new submission to the consultation on the bill that stated:

“WWA believes that the term ‘violence against women’ does not exclude men and boys as it refers to a crime type rather than a particular class of victim. As women and girls are the overwhelming majority of victims of these types of violence and abuse and 95% of perpetrators have been found to be men, the benefit of retaining the term within the Bill far outweighs any initial confusion that may be cause in regards to coverage.”

This statistic was angrily challenged by the campaigner Mike Buchanan of Justice for Men and Boys who said in an open letter that this “lie” was a misrepresentation of data contained in a 2008 report by the Crown Prosecution Service. According to Buchanan:

“That report does not state that ‘95% of perpetrators have been found to be men. It states that 95% of those charged (over April – September 2006) were men – a very different matter. There are a number of reasons for this high proportion. Over many years British Crime Surveys have consistently reported that male victims are far more reluctant than women to report their abusers to the police and others. The justice system is institutionally biased against men, and treats women far more leniently.”

We must keep trying to find a solution

While not everyone on the men’s side of this gender political debate agrees with Paul Apreda’s approach, he does appear to have the good will and support of many advocates for male victims. Tony Stott of Healing Men who has campaigned tirelessly for the legislation in Wales to be gender inclusive told insideMAN:

“All those involved in domestic abuse should be treated equally and as individuals whether they are instigators or victims or both.  Support, resources and justice should be made equally available to all regardless of gender.  That is not to say that men and women should be treated the same – clearly men and women are of equal importance but each may well have different needs.

“Unfortunately, “different” has all too often meant denying the importance of men’s experiences of domestic abuse and the approach taken by FNF Both Parents Matter Cymru will help bring the inequalities in importance that men face into sharp focus.  This is a hugely difficult struggle but I feel it is so important that we keep trying to face and resolve this discrimination and inequality.  I hope this approach works!”

The challenge for the Welsh Government is to navigate the turbulent world of gender politics and come up with an approach to tackling violence in Wales that doesn’t favour either side of the debate and is equally capable of helping all victims irrespective of  gender.

—Photo credit: Flickr/Peter Harrison 

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