And so, the Tampon Tax looks like it’s on its way to the home for ridiculous, misogynistic laws in the sky. And it’s all thanks to George Osborne and David Cameron. Ah, no, say the Brexiteers, the whole idea that we had to go begging to Europe to get it fixed is plain wrong.
Had there not been an EU Referendum coming up in just over three months’ time, I suspect women would have been paying the extra 5% for some time to come. Because of an unlikely alliance between a few right wing Tory outers and Labour feminists, the Government has been forced to take action so that they don’t look like reactionary idiots.
Except they do.
George Osborne is no more a feminist than Brexiteer Steve Baker. If he was, he’d have done something about this long before now. The fact is that the Tory inners and outers are being as cynically opportunistic as each other. The “inners” are saying “Oh, look at this rabbit we’ve pulled out of the hat”, never mind that the rabbit should have been set free decades ago. The “outers” are doing the EU bad thing
And then there’s Nigel Farage, a man who was happy to take money for his party from a man who thinks that trouser-clad women are “hostile” jumping on the anti Tampon Tax bandwagon. He’s using its demise to argue that that we should be setting our own taxes, forgetting that it was a bunch of men in a room, including us, who set it in the first place.
If you are going to have a single market, there has to be some harmonisation of tax rates set across that area otherwise it’s just not fair. Our businesses benefit from it. In the same way, setting employment rights across the whole area, and human rights, is an obvious thing to do.
The problem with Brexit is that there are Tory MPs on both sides of the EU Grand Canyon in their party who don’t much like the idea of employment rights, maternity leave and the likes. The EU is our safety net from them. If we left the EU, the Tories would set about dismantling employment protection for everyone. Look how enthusiastic they were over the “fire at will” Beecroft reforms that the Liberal Democrats vetoed in the last Parliament. Anti EU Andrew Rosindell had a go at Labour’s Rachel Reeves last year for taking maternity leave. Even Remainer Robert Halfon, who fancies himself as a bit of a Tory workers’ champion has not got the best record on issues around employment. Without the Liberal Democrats to hold them back, Tories could take a coach and horses through our most basic protections if we weren’t in the EU.
This would disproportionately affect women. Catherine Bearder wrote about this last week on International Women’s Day.
Together in Europe we have made great strides forward for equality in recent decades. Take workplace rights. EU law has banned discrimination between women and men and enshrined the principle of equal pay for equal work. Women who become pregnant cannot be treated differently and have the right to take paid leave from work to visit a doctor. And mothers across Europe have the right to at least 14 weeks maternity leave and a minimum of four months off to care for newborn children. Ukip and right-wing Tories have made it perfectly clear that the first thing they want to do if the UK leaves Europe is tear up many of these hard-won protections. Nigel Farage has gone as far as saying that working mothers are worth less than men. We must not him and others turn the clock back on these hard won rights.
Of course it’s good that the Tampon Tax is on its way out, but this has been a salvo in the bitter Tory civil war over Europe rather than a victory for principle. These people cannot be trusted with our rights and that reason on its own is enough to vote to stay in Europe.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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11 Comments
It ain’t misogyny in 2016; it’s about random taxation forty years ago.
Jump many years.
Caron Lindsay: “Of course it’s good that the Tampon Tax is on its way out, but this has been a salvo in the bitter Tory civil war over Europe rather than a victory for principle. These people cannot be trusted with our rights and that reason on its own is enough to vote to stay in Europe.”
“These people cannot be trusted with our rights…”
That sounds like cobblers to me. We run democratic elections in our countries and campaigners are prepared to lose. I would not wish to be represented by a Tory but I know that there are some good’uns.
“These people cannot be trusted with our rights…”
So we have to trust someone else.
Over the last six years the Tories have done nothing to suggest they care about gender equality. They have done nothing to suggest they care about employment rights. It was the Lib Dems who pushed for shared parental leave. It was the Lib Dems (Vince) who got rid of the exclusivity clause on zero-hours contracts. As is the way of politics, we have 8 MPs so Tories claim all credit for both these measures. Incidentally Vince bailed Cameron out of all the furore about zero-hours by working to scrap zero-hours.
* should read ‘working to scrap zero hours exclusivity clauses’.
“If you are going to have a single market, there has to be [some] harmonisation of tax rates set across that area otherwise it’s just not fair.”
Define “some”, and then tell me if you think the EUrozone plans to meet or exceed that?
Corporation tax
Capital Gains
Tobin tax
Income tax (bands and threshholds)
NI (ditto)
VAT rates (perhaps at nordic levels of ~25%, a ‘regressive’ tax hohum!)
And then tell me if you think that’s salable in a general election….
The EU Commissions proposals to extend members states flexibility over VAT rates were leaking out mid to late last year and were the subject of an FT article in Jan this year. I can’t really see that the PM has managed to get anything that wasn’t already on the table. It seems to be a wonderful example of spin over substance. Also not quite sure where the idea that there has been agreement for a new UK zero rate comes from. The Council welcomed proposals to give more flexibility. As I understand it, theres not yet any draft legislation and this must be formally agreed. Since both the UK zero rates and the entire idea of member states having rate flexibility goes against the grain for some member states and it only needs a single no to scupper it, certain politicians might be getting rather carried away pre referendum.
IDS has gone over ‘cough’ a principle!
I though it was the UK government that agreed to include the “tampon tax” – back whenever? So not EU’s fault?
I see that IDS has discovered that he is in a Tory party. 🙂
Lots of background to this decision, but that is real politics. Let’s not lose site that this terrible tax has gone 🙂 🙂 and be happy
Whatever the reasoning it’s now ended and that’s good news. Who ever decided to introduce it in the first place must have been crackers.
Malc
“Who ever decided to introduce it in the first place must have been crackers.”
1973, part of the tax harmonisation when joining the EU (as it is now)
I honestly don’t get this ever passive liberal viewpoint.
The anger from the leave EU camp, is actually embodied in this farcical VAT on tampons, and I seriously don’t understand why more liberal commenter’s are not incandescent with rage over the fact that an *elected PM* and his Chancellor, have *no* power to simply scrap this, without firstly crawling on their knees to *Beg !!* some unelected no-bodies in Brussels for their permission to scrap this tax.?
Seriously,… why are you not as enraged as I, at the loss of a sovereign nations ability to simply scrap tampon tax, because its sovereign government at the behest of its electorate say that tax should simply GO !!! ?