Women in Westminster: In Conversation With Nan Sloane
A tireless advocate for fairer representation, Nan Sloane has spent decades championing and supporting women in UK politics. As part of our Women in Westminster series, we sat down with Sloane to learn more about how she has helped countless women step into public life
Few people have had as sustained and far-reaching an impact on women’s political representation in the UK as Nan Sloane. Throughout her career, she has trained hundreds of women and written extensively about the lost histories of early women in UK politics. Many of those that Sloane has supported have become candidates for election and MPs, with some going on to become some of the most recognisable figures in UK politics.
Sloane’s determination to increase the number of women in public life has helped shape an environment for young women today that is very different to the one that the founder of Labour Women’s Network’s Political School recalls from her own childhood.
“I grew up in the 1950s and early '60s. There was no social media. We didn’t have a television. We didn’t even have a radio until I was seven,” she tells Women in Westminster. “As children, we had very little sense of a wider world where women went out and did things.”
Sloane grew up in a working-class community in the Black Country before moving to Yorkshire. She tells us that for women of her generation and background, “aspiration” was seldom part of the conversation.
“Little girls in working-class communities at that time were never asked what they wanted to be when they grew up. There was no sense of a life beyond where you were,” she explains. “It wasn’t really until I got to university that I started looking around and thinking, ‘Oh, people do other things. There are other worlds, other lives.’”
While recognising that an absence of women in public life can act as a constraint on aspirations, Sloane remains hugely sceptical of the concept of “role models” for women. She describes the construct as “modern framing,” pointing out that “it’s not a question women had to answer in previous centuries.” She also suggests that rather than inspiring women, it can instead limit their aspirations.
“I often think about that phrase ‘you can’t be what you can’t see,’” she says. “I think that’s an incredibly limiting thing to say to young women and every underrepresented group because it implies that you can only aspire to what’s already visible. It suggests you can’t imagine something different.”
That ability to imagine something different is a theme that Sloane returns to several times during our sit-down conversation. However, she recognises that lasting change is never delivered by imagination alone. It also requires practical mechanisms to achieve the better outcomes that she and others want to see.
Reflecting on the progress that has been made in women’s political representation in recent decades, Sloane pinpoints the introduction of positive action for the 1997 election as the “big game changer”, opening up new opportunities for women. In particular, she believes that the measure gave women a realistic prospect of selection, which encouraged their participation.
“Women tend to be quite pragmatic about the decisions they make,” she explains. “What positive action did was give women a serious prospect of selection and potentially winning. That opened up politics to many women who wouldn’t otherwise have pursued it. It had a serious impact.”
That step change in 1997 provided a platform that has led to Parliament having a very different makeup today. The 2024 general election returned the highest number and proportion of female MPs ever recorded, with 40 per cent of MPs now being women. However, Sloane believes the battle is far from won, pointing out significant differences in the number and proportion of women MPs across the political parties. This, she argues, will need to be addressed if women are to ever reach and maintain parity.
“Getting 50 per cent elected representation requires the participation of all parties, and some have a principled objection to the mechanisms we know work,” she says. “Each party must find its own way to do that, but I do think that people who genuinely want the outcome must recognise that achieving it involves a cost – a restructuring of how power is allocated.”
If the ultimate goal of gender balance is to be achieved, then Sloane is clear that all parties need to put practical measures in place to drive up the number of women MPs. Her own focus remains firmly on the Labour ranks, where her training has provided an important first step for many women. Some of those women go on to become candidates and MPs, while others take the learning from the programmes and apply it in different areas of their lives.
“Everyone’s reason for coming to us is different,” she explains. “Some don’t know if they want to do it, others are determined and just need some help. We’re just one step on the road – there are many others.”
Reflecting on her personal contribution, Sloane is consistently clear that the achievements of the women she has worked with belong to them, not to her. There is a recognition that there are many factors shaping any one person’s journey, and the training Sloane and her colleagues provide is only one small piece of a much wider jigsaw.
“Nobody is successful only because of what we’ve done,” she tells us. “Everyone’s success is a mix of their own efforts and choices, and how they grow through the process.”
That does not mean that Sloane does not feel a degree of personal pride as she tracks the progress of those who have passed through her training programmes.
“I’m proud of every woman we’ve worked with, whether they went into Parliament or not,” she says. “Many go on to do other things. Sometimes you can spot future success, sometimes you’re surprised. And often those surprises are the most rewarding.”
Whatever route women take, whether they seek election or not, Sloane believes that the common factors in women succeeding are commitment and determination. Her advice to others is that although talent is important, tenacity and hard work are non-negotiables for any woman seeking to enter public life.
“Life will intervene. Circumstances will knock you off course,” she reminds us. “But if something is really important to you – if you believe it’s what you were put on this earth to do – then be determined. Be persistent. Don’t let setbacks throw you off course. Reassess if needed but stick with it.”
