Labour’s plans to protect women will change lives for the better

Editorial: The opposition proposes new protections for whistleblowers who report the bullying or sexual harassment of women in the workplace

Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, will oversee the proposals (PA)

If we take Labour’s priorities on Sir Keir Starmer’s terms, his “mission” to halve violence against women is a welcome aspiration. It is less a quantifiable target than a statement of intent, and as such it is the right approach for a party that is increasingly a government in waiting.

We report today that Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, plans new protections for whistleblowers who report the bullying or sexual harassment of women in the workplace. For all the progress that has been made towards sex equality over the decades, and for all the gains of the MeToo movement in the past few years, it remains depressingly common that women are belittled, harassed and assaulted by men at work.

Every time such things are reported in the media – and these are usually only the most shocking cases – the circumstances are similar: women felt that they could not complain without putting their job at risk, or that there was no one independent of their employer through whom they could defend themselves.