AT LAST year’s Labour Party conference, Unite leader Len McCluskey quoted Emily Dickinson to convey the change in British politics wrought by new Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

“Hope is the thing with feathers/ That perches in the soul/ And sings the tune without the words/ And never stops-at all.”

It seems apt to quote it as this year’s International Women’s Day takes place in an altogether more hopeful climate than last year.

Hopeful because, with the election of Corbyn to the Labour leadership, the politics of a more positive future has broken into the heart of the political Establishment. Social justice is its goal and it rejects austerity.

The deep structural problems in Britain’s economy and a politics that has increasingly alienated people has survived successive governments since Thatcher’s election.

These economic problems include a lack of investment underpinning low productivity, geographical imbalances and a growth in insecure working and low pay as trade unions were shackled. It has meant stagnating and falling wages and yawning inequality.

Austerity has exacerbated these problems, and has therefore failed to deliver sustainable growth and better living standards for millions of people, and for women in particular.

Now Chancellor George Osborne is warning of “further reductions” in next week’s Budget — for which, read “more cuts.”

Over 70 per cent of austerity measures — counted as cuts to public services and benefits — have fallen on the backs of women.

In January research revealed that violence against women had increased since 2009, when austerity — and its cuts to social services — began to bite.

Stopping these regressive steps and instead advancing women’s rights is crucial for women’s liberation. In the workplace we need trade unions, collective and individual employment rights, and in wider society we need our public services rebuilt.

One in four women are in low-paid or insecure work and continue to be concentrated in the “five Cs” — catering, cleaning, caring, cashiering and clerical work. 

These are jobs that deserve better pay and more respect. Instead they have been the sectors most scarred by the rise in precarious working, zero and short-hours contracts.

Average real wages are worth £2,270 less than they were in 2008 because of this government’s economic policies.

The narrowing of the persistent gender pay gap is a result of everyone’s pay falling, rather than greater steps towards equality. Women still earn 19 per cent less than men when working full-time and 38 per cent less when working part-time.

In his speech to the British Chambers of Commerce last week, Corbyn was clear that you “cannot base a decent social policy on an unsustainable economic policy.” He said Labour “will always seek to distribute the rewards of growth more fairly” and added that “by driving up investment we can guarantee rising living standards for all.”

This “can provide the decent pay, jobs, housing, schools, health and social care of the future.” It is worth noting that in these crucial areas, the shadow cabinet positons are dominated by women including Angela Eagle, Lucy Powell and Heidi Alexander — and overall women are half the shadow cabinet and half of the economics advisory committee.

In contrast to the race to the bottom in wages and job security we are currently seeing, Corbyn was unsurprisingly clear on being in favour of a real living wage and stronger trade unions. Government figures show that, compared to non-organised workplaces, a substantially higher percentage of unionised workplaces and employers have better flexible working policies, enhanced maternity pay and other equality policies.

The elected Labour leadership is facing an unremittingly hostile media and a section of Corbyn’s party is determined to destabilise his leadership. Despite this important strikes against the government have been made — most significantly on tax credits. Over three million households were saved from losing more than £1,000 a year. Last week the cuts to housing benefit for supported housing were delayed for a year.

The support given to the junior doctors in their fight for safe working practices — the government’s contract changes again disproportionately affect women — have boosted the doctors’ campaign and increased the political problems for the government.

Across Europe racism and hatred of migrants is being stoked, with razor wire zig-zagging the continent. Corbyn has a long record on supporting the rights of people who migrate or are made refugees. And while his speech concentrated on economics he drew the clear links between this economic policy, the need to democratise our public life and a new relationship with the rest of the world, based on co-operation, human rights and conflict resolution and war as a last resort.

Those opposing the government’s agenda of cuts, inequality and more misery know they not only have more allies numerically than a few years ago, but more powerful allies.

It is women who have the most to gain from supporting the current Labour leadership, popularising their policies and winning the political fights and elections ahead of us to get a Labour government with such a positive vision of a better society and world.

The new ecomomics is more than just a hope that things can be better — it is achievable. In future years an International Women’s Day will be held in a world of global and social justice.

• Labour Assembly Against Austerity is hosting Better off with Labour — the Alternative to Osborne’s Cuts, tomorrow at 7pm, House of Commons Committee Room 10. Including John McDonell, Cat Smith, Diane Abbott, Maya Goodfellow and others. You can register your interest at labourassemblyagainstausterity.org.uk and follow @labourassembly.