It appears that some Reform UK politicians are grasping that there will be public opposition to repealing the Equality Act 2010 and that it might even be a vote-loser. Their proposal is to replace some of the protections in the Equality Act with a Motherhood and Women Protection Act.

What would be lost

Reform proposes to transfer some protections for women from the Equality Act, including rights to equal pay and to non-discrimination. Presumably in Reform’s world this protection would only apply to cisgender women, not all women. Women might wonder what is the purpose of abolishing some existing legal protections only, perhaps to enact them in new legislation.

In the Equality Act there are rights for both women and men to claim equal pay and to not be discriminated against on grounds of sex in employment and provision of goods and services. This continues the principle in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, which is incorporated into the Equality Act, that no one should be discriminated against on grounds of sex.

The shift from universal rights to protecting women should ring some alarm bells. Universal equality rights express basic principles of fairness and shared humanity. Would Reform remove the right from male workers to claim equal pay if they believed they were being paid less than a comparable female?

Protections against many other forms of discrimination would be lost if the Equality Act is repealed. There are nine protected characteristics of which sex and pregnancy/maternity are two. This would leave discrimination based on age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, race, religion or belief and sexuality as areas where there is no legal protection.

Intersectionality

One argument advanced for incorporating previous equality laws into one equality act was that it would enable a person who experienced more than one form of discrimination, e.g. race and sex discrimination in employment, to sue under one act rather than several laws. Hence the law made it easier to address issues of intersectionality, the situation where a person experiences more than one form of discrimination and oppression, with a magnifying effect on how these oppressions work.

Protecting mothers

Mothers do need protection in the workplace. There are too many cases where mothers are designed out of jobs or women come back from maternity leave to face opposition, such as their replacement still sitting at their desk. Employer compliance with the maternity rights provisions of the Equality Act could be improved, but is this likely to come from a party, Reform, which would generally weaken workers’ rights?

We should also ask which mothers would Reform protect. Parties which encourage racism and discrimination against migrants can hardly be looked to as guarantors of protection for all women and pregnant people. What about the rights of mothers who are migrant workers and have to work away from their children?

How would Reform UK protect mothers when one of the basic problems at the moment is the under-funding of maternity services and the lack of midwives? The crisis in maternity care falls particularly harshly on black women when coupled with racism in the NHS. Black women are four times more likely than white women to die in pregnancy and childbirth.

Real moves to protect mothers would involve stronger employment rights, better maternity leave, more funding for the health service, and educating more health workers. These are things the workers movement should campaign for, but are unlikely to come from the far-right.

Reproductive rights

Far right parties are anti-choice and would not protect the Abortion Act 1967, the act under which most terminations are performed in Britain. Reproductive rights would not be safe in the hands of the far-right. They want some women to be forced to have white, British children.

In the USA the almost total prohibition of abortion in some states has put the lives of pregnant women in danger, since doctors are reluctant to perform terminations even in cases of ectopic pregnancy, incomplete miscarriage and cases where the foetus is not viable. This is not ‘pro-life’, it is killing women.

The far right and motherhood

Women as the mothers of the nation and the protectors of the home are recurring themes in far-right ideology, along with ultra-traditional views of the family. This perspective undermines women’s rights to equality in the workplace and public life. It devalues the lives of single people and those who live in different types of family and household arrangements. Protection of the rights of women as mothers should not be at the expense of recognising the woman’s humanity and her rights as a worker and a citizen. We need to defend the Equality Act in its entirety, and extend it where necessary, opposing any moves by the far-right to replace it with more limited protections.