Sabia Kamali welcomes Labour’s strategy to address gender-based violence but calls for sustainable funding and political consistency
To work with women experiencing domestic abuse is to confront power in its rawest form. Not the power debated in parliament or negotiated in boardrooms, but the kind exercised behind closed doors. Through withheld money, monitored movements, quiet threats and the steady dismantling of a woman’s confidence. It is intimate, deliberate and deeply political. And it does not exist in isolation. It is sustained by economic inequality, by housing insecurity and too often by institutional hesitation when clarity and courage are required.
Domestic abuse is not a marginal social issue. It is a structural injustice rooted in patriarchy, economic dependency and the normalisation of control. It is about who holds power and who is expected to endure it. When Labour places violence against women and girls at the centre of its political agenda, it is making an important statement: that gendered injustice is not secondary to economic justice, but inseparable from it.
There is much to welcome in Labour’s current direction. Recognising coercive control as central to abuse reflects the lived reality of women’s experiences. Abuse is rarely a single explosive incident. It is patterned and cumulative: financial restriction, surveillance, humiliation, and isolation. By the time violence becomes visible, a woman’s world has often already narrowed.
The shift toward prevention is equally significant. Education in schools about healthy relationships, consent and respect is not cultural ornamentation – it is preventative justice. For the left, education has always been about transformation. Challenging entitlement, dominance and rigid gender roles early is one of the few ways we can realistically disrupt cycles of abuse.
But prevention must be resourced if it is to be meaningful. Teachers require training. Schools need time and specialist input. Women’s organisations with frontline expertise must be involved in shaping content. Without this, prevention risks becoming rhetorical, progressive in tone, and limited in impact.
The deeper challenge, however, is material.
Domestic abuse services remain under sustained pressure. Refuges are routinely full. Advocacy services manage growing caseloads with uncertain funding. Specialist organisations led by and for Black and minoritised women, disabled women and migrant women continue to navigate short-term commissioning cycles that undermine stability and expertise.
For a party grounded in collective provision, this is where principle meets practice. Domestic abuse support services are not peripheral charities – they are essential social infrastructure. Multi-year, sustainable funding should be the baseline, not the exception. Local authorities, whose safeguarding responsibilities have grown, must be properly resourced to deliver them.
A feminist analysis also demands that we name the economic dimension clearly. A woman’s ability to leave abuse is shaped by housing availability, access to welfare, childcare provision and secure employment. Economic precarity is often the invisible chain that keeps women in dangerous situations. Without addressing housing shortages, insecure work and gaps in social security, domestic abuse policy risks treating symptoms rather than structures.
Survivors do not experience the state in departmental silos. They experience it as a web. If housing systems leave them homeless, if welfare rules leave them destitute, if immigration policy deters disclosure, then safeguarding commitments are weakened. A coherent left response must align economic policy with protection policy.
This brings us to the question of political consistency. Labour rightly speaks of accountability, safeguarding and challenging abuses of power. These commitments resonate deeply with survivors. Many have encountered institutions that were quicker to protect reputation than to protect them. Rebuilding trust requires more than strong policy frameworks; it requires visible consistency in how standards are applied.
The appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador prompted some unease within sections of the left. This is not about reopening old divides, nor about diminishing the significance of Labour’s commitments on violence against women and girls. It is about perception and coherence. When a party emphasises ethical leadership and safeguarding culture, it must remain attentive to how decisions are understood — particularly by those whose experiences have been shaped by double standards in powerful institutions.
For survivors, consistency is not symbolic. It is foundational. They know what it means when influence appears to soften scrutiny. They also know the damage done when accountability feels uneven.
Acknowledging that discomfort does not weaken Labour’s position. It strengthens it. A movement committed to equality must demonstrate confidence in its own standards. The application of the principle should not depend on status.
Labour has an opportunity to lead with clarity: by embedding sustainable funding for services, aligning economic justice with safeguarding, and applying its ethical commitments consistently across public life.
Tackling domestic abuse is not peripheral to the left’s project. It sits at the core. A politics that challenges inequality in the workplace but ignores coercion in the home is incomplete. Solidarity cannot stop at the front door. If Labour is serious about equality, then safeguarding must be understood not only as policy, but as culture – principled, sustained and consistent. That is the measure by which survivors, and history, will judge us.