A would-be
Labour MP has sparked controversy after it emerged she had branded women campaigning against a controversial strip club “trashy SWERFs”.
Sophie Wilson, 23, was last week selected as Jeremy Corbyn’s candidate for Rother Valley and has already clashed with community leaders over Spearmint Rhino in Sheffield.
The Sheffield councillor joined a protest to save the club when its licence was under threat earlier this year, after women’s equality campaigners secretly filmed inside the bar.
Footage allegedly showed dancers “sexually touched customers” and that the club breached more than 200 regulations.
Wilson told HuffPost
UK she joined dancers to protest because jobs were at risk and “not to support their exploitative employer”.
Wilson was also the subject of a formal complaint when she lashed out at campaigners against the club in a number of social media posts.
She branded them “trashy SWERFs” (sex worker exclusionary radical feminists) who she claimed were “patronising young women”. The council found Wilson had potentially breached its code of conduct for elected members.
The council’s letter responding to the complaint was posted on
Twitter last week. And the response pic.twitter.com/mHTcIZAzwU— Click Off (@ClickOffOrg) October 25, 2019Monthly inspections by Sheffield City Council later found no contraventions and the local authority’s licensing committee voted to keep the bar open after an eight-hour meeting.
If elected, Wilson will represent part of Rotherham. The South Yorkshire town is known for organised child sexual exploitation which took place between 1997 and 2013.
One of the survivors of the abuse, Sammy Woodhouse, also clashed with Wilson about the issue. Woodhouse told HuffPost UK: “Hundreds of people were against the strip club. The fact that Labour has selected someone who publicly supported the club will go down badly.
“Sadly, I do think that she will be voted in, but she is exactly what we don’t need in Rotherham.
“She goes against everything me and other women have been fighting for.” Labour have selected Sophie Wilson as their candidate for Rother Valley in the next election. If elected it would make her my MP. This is a woman that publicly supported women being exploited. Am I surprised they selected her? No they spent decades doing the same thing! https://t.co/GGbjDE5Ik2— Sammy Woodhouse (@sammywoodhouse1) October 25, 2019Not sure what you think I represent but 1 issue we disagree on isn't my entire politics. Yes, I am from the area. Can't really prove that any further if you don't believe me....— Sophie Wilson (@Soph__wilson) October 22, 2019Sophie you publicly supported a club that was alleged of exploitation, harassment, sexual assault etc and damning evidence proved wrongdoing therefore everything you stand for goes out the window. It’s all I and others need to know. You’re no leader of Rotherham.— Sammy Woodhouse (@sammywoodhouse1) October 22, 2019When approached by HuffPost UK, Wilson said she had not been on the licensing committee and therefore had never voted to keep the club open, adding: “I do not support the club or any other exploitative employer.”
She added: “I attended a rally organised by unionised women workers campaigning against the closure of the club because they did not want to lose their jobs. I attended to show my support for them as workers, not to support their exploitative employer.
“I believe all debate should be conducted in a comradely and respectful manner and I welcome discussions about how best to support women who are suffering from exploitation in their workplace.”
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