Did the Women's Equality Party achieve its ambition?

Leaders of the Women's Equality Party (WEP) propose to wind up their organisation. A statement issued by its executive committee, endorsed by co-founders Sandi Toksvig and Catherine Mayer, declares: "The truth is, despite themphenomenal efforts of our team, tireless activists and brilliant members, we can no longer see a way to make this work. Everybody is struggling, particularly women.

- SEAN O'GRADY

“Populism has gained ground and people are more and more polarised. We cannot, with the resources we have, and the political landscape as it is, deliver the change we were founded to make.” A special online party conference on 17 November will be asked to approve the decision.

Why is this happening?

It’s not because their work is done, or that equality – or anything like it – has been achieved. As with all smaller parties who lack philanthropic plutocrats to fund them, they are short of money – though the party says this is not the principal reason for the end of this feminist dream.

The WEP’s executive committee argues that the party’s earlier, successful strategy was not to catapult itself into power but to act as a pressure group, and to contest elections so that the other parties were pushed into taking equality and the feminist cause more seriously – thereby changing policy and attitudes.

The WEP claimed success with this, but its executive committee has now come to the conclusion that the rise of populism has made it too difficult to sustain: “We set out to demonstrate that people will vote for equality, so that in turn the old parties would shift themselves to look like us. And they did. They stood women against us, took our policies, and sped up progress. But now, instead of pursuing equality, they are weaponising debates about it to create division. That makes our model of creating change less effective.”

What went wrong?