Joy Morrissey is Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities and a former Opposition Deputy Chief Whip. She is the MP for Beaconsfield.
When Kemi asked me to join the Shadow Cabinet and take on the Women and Equalities brief, I was honoured and delighted. I also made myself a promise immediately afterwards. That no matter how difficult it got, no matter how loud the howling of the left got, I would always speak out to protect women, girls and children.
Before politics I undertook humanitarian work across the world in places like China, Kosovo and Albania. I saw up close genuine poverty, ethnic cleansing in action and cultures where men treated women appallingly. Together with my work at the Centre for Social Justice, it drove my desire to come into politics to give a voice to those who didn’t have one.
In Britain, women and girls need Conservative voices to cut through identity politics and get to the heart of the issues that matter. Kemi has been that voice for years, and I am proud to be part of a strong, united team under her leadership.
We are in the middle of a crisis of violence against women and girls. In 2025, 3.2 million women in England and Wales alone – 13 per cent of all women – experienced rape, sexual assault, domestic abuse or stalking. Rapes are at all time high with nearly 75,000 rapes recorded last year. Even taking into account the work Conservatives did to improve rape reporting, this is an appalling statistic. What is even more terrifying? The age group of women who most report rapes are 14 year old girls.
Labour’s response to this crisis has been pitiful.
Yesterday I visited Piddington with Kemi, who received a very, very warm welcome. This was my second visit,* and what we heard from those women resonates with so much that I have heard from across the country. They are afraid for the safety of themselves, their daughters and their granddaughters. 1250 male illegal immigrants placed in a former MoD site near a village of 300, free to roam unchecked. They are right to speak up.
Not a single Labour MP or Minister has visited them or replied to their letters.
Labour has ignored the women of Piddington. Just as they have ignored women in the north concerned about illegal immigrant in their cities, towns and villages. Just as they have ignored women and girls affected by the rape gang scandal. The left has an instinctive reflex to these questions. Complain about illegal immigrants making you feel unsafe and if you are from the north, you are racist. Complain about the illegal immigrants coming to your Oxfordshire village, then you are privileged and middle class.
The truth is, Labour is obsessed with multiculturalism and cannot confront hard truths that challenge their left wing orthodoxy. They cannot comprehend that allowing hundreds of thousands of men to come here illegally from countries like Eritrea, Afghanistan and Sudan will create issues when you try and force them into our communities. Some of these men come from cultures that treat women worse than animals. Giving these men a leaflet asking them not to rape women and girls represents a fundamental dereliction of duty of this Government to keep women and girls safe.
That’s why in my first Parliamentary Questions I asked two direct questions:
Did the Government agree that these illegal migrant men pose a direct threat to the safety of British women and girls? They couldn’t answer.
Did the Government agree that men who need a leaflet asking them not to rape women and girls should instead be deported? They couldn’t answer.
We have a clear Borders Plan that will protect women and girls from these men, Labour has no answer and no clue.
That is also why I had to have a double take when I saw my opposite number Bridget Phillipson declare on Sunday that the solution was a Misogyny Taskforce to look at “attitudes”. Labour’s student politicians setting up a talking shop in the middle of a crisis of violence against women and girls. It is not serious Government.
Whilst this taskforce tackles violence against women and girls as if it was an academic dissertation, the Government still cannot tell us how many rapes, sexual assaults and other crimes are committed by men with active asylum applications. For Labour, ignorance is a defence. For millions of women and girls in our country that ignorance puts them at risk. I have put in a series of Parliamentary questions to try and force Government to understand why this is utterly unacceptable.
The Conservatives under Kemi Badenoch are a serious party, delivering detailed plans to make Britain stronger. As part of Kemi’s strong, united team I will fight every day to end identity politics and make sure the women and girls of our country get the safety they deserve.