Women ….that’s what. I am not going into whether Brexit is a good or bad decision, as currently nobody has a clue and anyway that is not the point of this blog.

One immediate consequence (amongst many others) is that the UK now have a 2nd female Prime Minister. Not bad when many European nations have not yet had one. 

The leader of the Scottish Parliament is female, as is each leader of the major Scottish political parties. The head of the Northern Ireland assembly is a woman, as is currently the front runner for the UK Labour Party  and the leader of Plaid Cymru(not forgetting the Greens) Oddly the liberal democrats are seem somewhat isolated in  the equality stakes. Oddly, because they are supposed to be what it says on their tin ‘Liberal Democrats ‘. Oh, and we have a Queen, not that anybody had a say in that but we can lay claim to a ‘full house’.

What I am not here to discuss is as to whether they are good or bad at what they do. What I do want to reflect upon is that whilst an element of the leave campaigners wanted to take us back to the 1950’s , they have, inadvertently , brought UK politics into the the 21st century and way ahead of a lot of our democratic neighbours throughout world. 

This is not to infer that women are perfect or always right,  far from it but they are equal. History does suggest that they can bring aspects into ‘statesmanship’ that men can’t or don’t . Whatever their politics or beliefs Indira Ghandi, Benazir Bhutto, Golda Meir, Eva Peron, Margaret Thatcher, made their impact upon the world in a way that was beyond the reach of many men. The impact was not always to be considered beneficial , but that is not my point . The point is that women are equally as capable, and sometimes incapable as men. Other surprising nations who have had female pm’s are Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. These two plus Pakistan and India are not known for equality issues, whereas the EU is but falls down when it comes to Premiers, with I beleive only Germany, Denmark,Finland, Latvia and Croatia having female leaders in the last 30 years. The USA , of course, has as yet had none.

We are facing some huge changes , and in order to have any chance of succeeding we need to approach our future in a new and creative way. This is a good start. There is one major political difference between the sexes , woman don’t have an ‘old order’. There is no ‘old boys club’ and whatever political cliques that may exist, it would appear our new PM does not belong to any. Whatever our future holds it promises to be different, we just have to ensure it is ‘good’ different.