The first leader of a new political party set up by broadcaster Sandi Toksvig to campaign for women's rights has been announced.
Journalist and author Sophie Walker has been named as the leader of the Women's Equality Party (WEP) and vowed to put equality "back on the mainstream political agenda".
The party, which hopes to field candidates in elections next year, could champion radical policies including new laws aimed at ensuring equal representation for women in parliament and on company boards.
The WEP hopes to follow the lead of other small parties such as Ukip which have managed to influence the political agenda without a large presence at Westminster.
Ms Walker, 44, who has two daughters and two step-sons, said: "We want to put equality for women back on the mainstream political agenda. We believe that it's time to really take action to fix many things that have been left unfixed for too long."
The party would campaign on six key themes: ending violence against women, calling for equal representation in politics and business "so that women's voices are heard at the same volume as men's", equal pay, equal parenting, equal education and equal representation by and in the media.
The WEP, which was formed by Toksvig and journalist Catherine Mayer in March, is still developing its policies in conjunction with activists from around 50 local branches.
Ms Walker said: "We are working on our policies right now, we will be unveiling them later on in the autumn."
She would not rule out the prospect of pushing for legislation to ensure equal representation for women in Westminster or in the City.
"We are listening to all of our members, we are taking everything on board right now," she said.
"There is nothing off the table, everything is on the table."
She indicated that WEP would draw inspiration from the performance of parties such as Ukip and the Green Party - which together achieved 16.4 per cent of the vote in May but just two seats - and the rise of the SNP in Scotland.
Ms Walker said: "What we are trying to do is make the existing political parties better. Yes, we absolutely are presenting ourselves as an electoral force, we have learned lessons - it's very clear to see how other parties have come through and managed to put their agendas in the mainstream by being an electoral force.
"We also want to work really closely with the existing parties. I'm the best leader for the party because I am a very ordinary person."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel