The Women’s Equality Party is set to wind down after nine years with leaders feeling its approach is no longer the most effective way of meeting its aims.
The party’s 5,600-strong membership is set to discuss and vote on its future at a special online conference on November 17 - with leaders backing a resolution to dissolve it.
Leader Mandu Reid is in favour of shutting it down, as are party co-founders Catherine Mayer and Sandi Toksvig, having established the party in 2015.
Ms Reid told the Guardian that the decision was made in light of financial challenges as well as a changing political and media landscape.
“It has become quite difficult to do what we need to do at the scale that would make a difference,” she said.
“I realised it might be better at this moment to put energy into other approaches.”
“The mission is as urgent as ever,” she added.
“There hasn’t been enough progress yet moving towards a world where men and women are equal citizens.”
The party has stood candidates at all levels of the system with the hope of infiltrating politics and having their ideas taken by other, more mainstream, political outfits.
It was founded on ideologies such as promoting equal pay and access to childcare for women, values it was able to promote in election hustings and in interviews.
The Women’s Equality Party currently has one elected councillor nationwide, with Stacy Anne Hart winning a seat on Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council this year. She has not commented on what the party’s closure would mean for her future.
Ms Reid also has the distinction of being the first black leader of a British political party.
Ms Toksvig added that the party would now look to other options for how to champion its message and outreach.
“I would like this to generate a conversation nationwide about where we are with women’s equality,” she said.
“Why are we still struggling to sort out affordable childcare? Why has the pay gap not been closed?”
The party’s full statement and details for how to attend the conference are now online.
