Male Labour MPs should back a woman when the party chooses a successor to Sir Keir Starmer, Harriet Harman has said.
The veteran politician, who stepped down at the general election after 40 years in parliament, said it is “embarrassing and sort of shameful” that Labour has never had a female at the helm.
Speaking to Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast, she said men with future leadership ambitions should “strive to be deputy” and support a woman for the top job.
“I think it’s sort of embarrassing and sort of shameful that we think we’re the party of women’s equality, whereas we’ve never had a woman leader,” she said, comparing that with the Tories who have had three female bosses.
Ms Harman speculated Labour women “are more uncomfortable in our own party because our analysis is the power structures are wrong, they’re patriarchal”.
“That makes you quite a sort of irritant to your colleagues and uncomfortable and subversive,” she said.
“And therefore, it’s more difficult for them to rally around a woman who is critiquing the whole system.
“Whereas I think the Conservative women hitherto were more or less, ‘we’re going to beat the men on their own terms’.”
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Harman becomes tearful in Commons
She went on to say men had a role to play in ensuring whoever succeeds Sir Keir is a woman.
“They all want to be leader. It’s like they’ve got to just now strive to be deputy and support a woman leader.
“You know, it takes a very strong man to be leader, but it takes an even stronger man to support a woman for leader.”
The question of who ultimately succeeds Sir Keir is not likely to be an issue for some time given he is just a month into his premiership.
The new prime minister has his sights on two terms in government – or a “decade of national renewal” as he has called it.
His cabinet has the highest number of female leaders in history and includes Britain’s first ever female chancellor – Rachel Reeves.
But Labour is the only major party to have never had a female leader, with the Tories, the Lib Dems, the Greens and the SNP all being led by a woman at some point.
Ms Harman was the longest continuously-serving female MP until she retired at the 2024 election, ending a 42-year career in the House of Commons during which she was a major advocate for women’s rights.