Watch out Cameron: Meet the leader of Britain's first feminist political party

Exclusive: It's our fastest growing political party and Sandi Toksvig even left Radio 4 for it. But until now, the Women's Equality Party hasn't had a leader. Step forward Sophie Walker - this generation's Emmeline Pankhurst?

Sophie Walker has been announced as the leader of the Women's Equality Party Credit: Photo: Andrew Crowley

“I realised the other day,” Sophie Walker tells me, “I’ve taken a job that involves going on stage after Sandi Toksvig for the rest of my life”.

She throws her head back and laughs. “How did I not think that one through?”

Today Walker, 44, is publicly unveiled as the new leader of the Women’s Equality Party (WEP).

It’s just four months since the other founding members, broadcaster Sandi Toksvig and journalist Catherine Mayer first threw around the idea for the WEP. As another general election approached – with the only obvious concession to women being the much vilified Labour pink bus – the pair realised they were fed up of having their concerns relegated to the back few pages of political manifestos.

Especially at a time when women make up 51 per cent of our population but only 30 per cent of MPs, 25 per cent of judges and 25 per cent of FTSO 100 board directors.

“I have made jokes over and over again about politics," Toksvig said at the time. "Do you know, this election I've had enough."

Harriet Harman and Diane Abbott campaigning with Labour's pink bus

Harriet Harman and Diane Abbott campaigning with Labour's pink bus

She and many other women it seems. Since the time she first came up with the idea, 58 branches have sprung up around Britain, from Cardiff to Croydon; Lewisham to Leeds. It’s already been claimed that the WEP is the fastest growing political party in the UK. When it opened for monthly membership, a few weeks ago, 1,300 people joined on the first day – paying £4 a month each.

And that’s before mentioning the tens of thousands of emails from enthusiastic volunteers wanting to work for the party, which will officially launch in September and aims to field political candidates in 2020.

Walker, a Reuters journalist with 20-years experience will now be at the forefront as the party’s leader.

“A lifetime of experiences made me want to do this’, she says. “I realised the other day that I’m having exactly the same conversations with my friends that my mother was having with her friends in the Seventies. I look at my daughters (age 13 and 6) and think I really don’t want them to be the third generation having those conversations.

“But it’s already happening. My youngest girl loves science and superheroes, but is constantly made to feel they’re not appropriate for her gender. My eldest daughter has to navigate a highly sexualised environment because lad culture is rife in schools and girls are under pressure to look and behave a certain way.”

As soon as she heard about the WEP, Walker got on the phone.

“I felt excited by politics for the first time in a long time. I wanted to be part of it.’ This, she says, is despite having no previous political experience.

“I didn’t study politics at university. I didn’t do an internship with a politician. I haven’t written policy papers. I didn’t go to Oxbridge. I am completely new to this,” she admits. But what she does have experience in, is campaigning.

Sandi Toksvig at the first WEP fundraiser in London (Photo: Habie Schwarz)

Her eldest daughter Grace, 13 (she also has two stepsons with her civil servant husband), is autistic. Walker, who lives in North London, has spent the past few years actively trying to increase support for autistic children and their families. She’s an ambassador for the National Autistic Society and has written a book, Grace under Pressure, about the experience of raising an autistic child and the mental anguish it put her through as a mother - including a spell on anti-depressants.

Does such openness not make her vulnerable in the public eye?

“I’m pretty much out there,” Walker agrees. “I talk frankly about my life and I think I’ll be taking the same approach going forward. It’s daunting to put your head above the parapet, but I think it’s important.”

She also thinks it's important to address the issue of motherhood head on and explains that she's not prepared to compromise.

“The fact I’m doing this doesn’t mean I’m going to vanish,” she says. “We have party meetings where people bring their kids. I understand that I’ve really got to focus on this job but I disagree that means I have to basically commit to not seeing my children for the next five years.

“It’s more difficult for Gracie, as she’s autistic and relies on routines. We’ve not had one recently and that’s a source of anxiety for her. But the most important thing for her is to know when she’s going to see me and that’s the challenge we’ll be talking about regularly”.

Sophie Walker (Photo: Andrew Crowley)

To date, the WEP has offered its members nothing more tangible than a list of six ‘goals’.

These are:

  1. Equal representation in politics and business
  2. Equal representation in education
  3. Equal pay
  4. Equal treatment of women in the media
  5. Equal parenting rights
  6. An end to violence against women.

So now she has been announced as leader, surely there are firm policies on the table? “We’re asking the people to write our policies,” she replies.

What like, a party by committee?

“It’s about opening up the political game to real people. Some people won’t get involved until we come out with a big, shiny booklet full of policies and we get that.

"But there are lots excited by the idea of being able to write it. It’s inevitable that we’ll be accused of being a group of white, middle-class women. But the committee has got disabled people, men, women of black and ethnic minority race and gay people. And that spread really goes through our branches, too”.

While the response to the party has been impressive, the eye-watering expense of founding a political party however is huge which is why Toksvig, although not leader, is still the public face of the party and a big draw at fundraisers. So far, it’s Toksvig who has been the focus for much of the social media trolling. Now much of that will surely come Walker’s way.

So, how does she expect to handle it?

“I’ve been on Twitter for a long time and I’ve seen it all,” she says. “I’m sick of seeing women reduced to two-dimensional characters who are there to be judged. I’m just me – a writer a mother, a runner. I will fall flat on my face at some point. And that’s ok. I’ll just get up and keep going”.

But for how long? Will the WEP be around as a real political force in a decade? Or are they there to simply act as a pressure group to push equality into the mainstream political agenda?

It’s a strategy that appears to be working in other countries. Sweden’s Feminist Initiative party saw its first MEP elected last year. The party also launched in Norway this April. “Of course, I’d love to wrap this up in five years time.” says Walker. “Ideally, I’d like it all to be sorted out by tomorrow, thanks very much.

“But it’s not going to happen overnight, but in five years I think we will have won seats in elections. Looking at the tidal wave of support, I’d be very surprised if we hadn’t managed to take this mainstream”.

Other WEP founders you need to know about

Catherine Mayer, whose unauthorised biography Charles: Heart of a King is published on Thursday

Catherine Mayer

Catherine Mayer, co-founder and president

Author and journalist Catherine Mayer - who this year published the revelatory biography of Prince Charles, Charles: The Heart of a King - is president and co-founder of the Women’s Equality Party.

She announced her idea for setting up a women-only party during a Southbank Centre talk involving three MPs ahead of the general election this year.

Feeling the options available in the election were uninspiring, she stood up at the end of the talk and said: “Here's an idea. Ukip, and obviously this is not our model, have stolen votes from the mainstream, forcing leading parties to take their agenda seriously.

"Let's form a women's party and see what happens. I'll be in the bar afterwards if anyone wants to discuss it.”

Sandi Toksvig, co-founder

Broadcaster and author Sandi Toksvig was approached by Catherine Mayer in March 2015 shortly after Mayer proposed setting up the Women's Equality Party.

Toksvig, who had been planning to put forward the same idea as part of the closing night of the Southbank Centre festivities, immediately agreed to give her support.

She resigned from presenting the Radio 4 News Quiz to enter politics.

Now, as well as being a co-founder, she is the face of the Women's Equality Party, often acting as 'Master of Ceremonies' at their events.