Lindsay Razaq
Scottish Labour Leader Kezia Dugdale has criticised the UK international trade secretary over comments he made about equal marriage.
Liam Fox previously described it as “social engineering” and “divisive, ill-thought-through and constitutionally wrong”.
But Ms Dugdale told the Labour Party’s women’s conference in Liverpool she had got engaged to her partner Louise over the summer.
And she added: “So let me tell Liam Fox with some authority what’s ‘constitutionally wrong’.”
Ms Dugdale, who was born in Aberdeen, also attacked Prime Minister Theresa May, questioning her feminist credentials.
“There’s nothing feminist about austerity,” she added. “We all know the cuts have hit women the hardest.
“As social security has been crushed by the Tories, 85% of the cuts have been borne by women.
“There’s nothing feminist about an economy built on low paid, low skilled work – a system that keeps women poor.
“There’s nothing feminist about a gender pay gap for the next 50 years.”
She said Mrs May – the Tories’ second female prime minister – had done “more for Boris Johnson in her first 80 days in office than the Tories have done for women in the last 80 years”.
The UK Labour Party has never been led by a woman, although Harriet Harman and Margaret Beckett have served as acting leader.
But Ms Dugdale insisted it was wrong to say the Labour party did not elect women leaders.
“You’re looking at one and I got 72% of the vote whilst you’re asking,” she declared.
The Lothian MSP applauded Nicola Sturgeon for legislating for 50-50 public boards, but stressed there was so much more to be done.
She said: “There’s nothing feminist first minister about having the power to stop the cuts and refusing to use it.
“There’s nothing feminist about cutting part-time college places for women who need a break and a chance to succeed.
“And there’s nothing feminist about locking women out of the jobs of the future.”
She added that having a woman first minister and two female opposition leaders at Holyrood was “not enough to transform the lives of young women in Scotland”.
“I have never felt such a responsibility to deliver for women in my life,” she said.
“In Scotland we now have one of the most powerful devolved parliaments in the world. We have the power to put money into our public services, the power to put wealth into the hands of women.
“These are just some of the changes we can make to women’s lives.
“And I can assure you that I will be using every tool at my disposal to do just that.”
