International Women's Day 2019

Guest interviewer, Jackie Ashely, picks up some 'scoops' on #IWD2019 in the latest of podcasts from Parliament. Heidi Allen MP and Ann Coffey MP on why women voters should be attracted to their new Independent Group. Crossing the floor of the House has always been a difficult thing for an MP to do, and they have received much criticism for doing so. A new political group was created when eight Labour MPs and three Conservative MPs crossed the floor of the House to sit together. They all support Remain in the Brexit debates and are in favour of a Second Referendum or People's Vote. Seven out of eleven are women, Jackie Ashley was keen to talk to them about finding a 'nicer way' of doing politics. Neither Allen nor Coffey said they would be standing down to re-fight their respective seats but that they did want to stand again for the same constituencies. Allen states that she had two-thousand-five-hundred positive emails and only forty-one negative ones. Allen says that government changes to welfare and Universal Credit was a factor for her leaving the Conservatives. Both ended by saying that they had no idea what rosette they would be wearing at the next election.