Jo Barker

Politician, Mum, Businesswoman, Shipston on Stour County Councillor.

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

I have spent my political career fighting against identity politics when it came from Labour, Lib Dems, or the SNP, and I will do exactly the same against identity politics when it comes from Reform UK.

The answer to Black Lives Matter is not a White Lives Matter born of the same racial grievance.

To fix this the Conservatives will stand up for the silent majority who want order, fairness, common sense, and one law for everyone.

[Crazy Vibes @CrazyVibes_1]

November 1971. Chiswick, West London.
Erin Pizzey is 32 years old. She is not a lawyer. Not a politician. Not a doctor.
She is a woman who talked Hounslow Council into lending her a cold, rundown building on Belmont Road — a former community hall — for almost nothing. Her original plan was modest. A warm room. A cup of tea. Somewhere for mothers with young children to simply get out of the house.
Then the door opened.
A woman stood in the entrance. She was covered, head to foot, in bruises. She was holding two small children. She was shaking.
She didn't want tea.
She needed somewhere to hide.
Erin let her in. She didn't turn her away. She didn't tell her to call the police.
Because Erin had already called the police. They told her the same thing they told every woman in Britain at the time: they could not enter a private home over a "domestic dispute." That was the law. The home was private. What happened inside it was a family matter.
When Erin contacted a female civil servant to report what she was seeing, the response was astonishing. The woman told her flatly: "There wasn't a problem of battered wives until you made one."
Erin put down the phone. Then she went back to her residents and made sure they were fed.
Within weeks, 40 mothers and children were sleeping in four tiny rooms. No funding. No staff. No legal authority.
She didn't stop.
By 1973, word had spread through quiet whisper networks — one woman telling another, "There is a place. Go to Chiswick. She won't turn you away." That same year, Erin hosted the first National Women's Aid Conference in the UK. Women from across Britain arrived, and they all recognized the same thing at once: what she had built needed to exist everywhere.
In 1974, the council set a maximum of 36 residents. At peak times, 150 women and children were living inside those walls — sleeping on floors, on chairs, in hallways. The building smelled of cooking, fear, and something else entirely: relief.
Erin was taken to court for overcrowding. She appealed all the way to the House of Lords.
She kept the doors open the entire time.
That same year, she wrote a book. Scream Quietly or the Neighbours Will Hear. It was the first published account of domestic violence in British history. It used real stories from real women inside the shelter. Overnight, a problem that had no official name was on front pages from London to New York.
The movement spread. Refuges opened across the UK. Then Australia. Then Canada. Then the United States. The pattern she created in four small rooms in West London — no blueprint, no permission, no funding — had been replicated in hundreds of shelters across the Western world.
MP Jack Ashley stood up in Parliament and said: "It was she who first identified the problem, who first recognised the seriousness of the situation and who first did something practical."
She was ranked 14th in a poll of the 100 women who shook the world. She was awarded the Italian Peace Prize. She received a CBE. The charity she founded — Chiswick Women's Aid, which became Refuge — grew into the largest domestic violence charity in the United Kingdom, with over 460 employees and an annual income of more than £33 million.
Erin Pizzey passed away on October 4, 2025, aged 86.
She never stopped.
It all began with one woman, one borrowed building, and an absolute refusal to say no.
Forty women and children showed up with nowhere to go.
She made room.

Share this if you believe one ordinary person, refusing to look away, can build a shelter that holds the whole world.

Follow us Lost in Yesterday

[Julian Ellacott @JulianEllacott]

Michael @Winstamike has a proven track record of local action in Makerfield - if you want a local champion rather than being part of a national political circus, he's the only choice! 💙
https://t.co/k6efRyfuML

[Suffragent @Suffragent_]

Shabana Mahmood has CONDEMNED the Henry Nowak protests in Southampton, saying those responsible will be arrested.

Meanwhile, here she is on a pro-Palestine protest which turned violent and forced a supermarket to close.

She has since deleted this video. Please don't RT it.

[Nick Timothy MP @NJ_Timothy]

The murder of Henry Nowak shows how law enforcement is corrupted by political correctness.

And it's far from the only case.

We need to dismantle the whole structure of identity politics - and return us to equality before the law.

[Jo Barker @JMVBarker]

@jessalinecaine Principles are why you join a party. You are a Conservative - you vote Conservative. @Winstamike is a fantastic candidate. Go & help him out.

[Omid Djalili @omid9]

There were so many posts from the political left before war broke out on Feb 28th saying “you know who was not in the Epstein files? Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei”. To Iranians, shockingly ignorant posts.

But they were correct. He wasn’t. Mainly because this kind of paedophilia, including child brides, is not only legally sanctioned, it is wholly endorsed and even encouraged inside the Islamic Republic of Iran. There are no legal protections for underage girls. Mullahs and others can abuse them with absolute impunity.

So where is the outrage from the west? As if the stoney silence wasn’t bad enough, there is also now a warped view developing of what’s going on inside Iran that “all is back to normal”.

Today is day 82 of a regime imposed internet blackout. Rest assured it is anything but normal.

It is beyond shameful how the western media is turning its gaze away from what’s happening inside Iran regarding how the regime is abusing its citizens.

Please watch this. Well said @NimaYamini 👏

[Sallie @Fr12ee44Spewxh]

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more comprehensive, well thought out policy proposal. Ever. This is what Britain needs. The Conservatives will get Britain back on track. Real policies by real politicians.

[Matt Vickers MP @Matt_VickersMP]

🥀 Everyone can see the damage Labour have done to our economy because of the ideological decisions they have made.

Small businesses are having to cut staff because of huge new taxes and red tape.

It’s costing people’s jobs and livelihoods.

[Jo Barker @JMVBarker]

@BritainElects He has lovely eyelashes.

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

The Prime Minister is acting like he's going to be there for the next two years.

He’ll be lucky if he lasts two weeks.

[Jo Barker @JMVBarker]

@surreykiwi @NotthatSuzanne No, but they are suggesting the rest of us do.

[Baroness Foster DBE #FreeIran🦁❤️ @jfoster2019]

This is great 👏 🎶

[Reform Party UK Exposed 🇬🇧 @reformexposed]

On election day @Nigel_Farage wouldn’t want this video to be shared over and over of him lavishing poodle-like praise on Donald Trump.

He’s been trying to disassociate from him, let's remind everyone that vote for Reform UK is a vote for Donald Trump's MAGA.

[Chris Rose @ArchRose90]

The Green Party has complained about this cartoon of Zack Polanski by the The Times.

They’re deeply unhappy with it. Whatever you do, do not repost!

[THE GREEN PARTY EXPOSED @ExposedGreens]

🚨 Green candidates, councillors, MPs, and members pay attention:

We’re watching closely. The moment your toxic agenda shows its face, we will expose you.

YOU ARE OFFICIALLY ON NOTICE.

How to help? Forget money.. we’re not taking donations.

Share our posts and TURN ON notifications for immediate updates.
(this how you truly help)

The more people we reach, the more this toxic agenda gets dismantled.

Share this with friends, family, and online contacts.

It’s crucial to expose those who hate our country and their twisted agenda.

[Ian 🇬🇧 @nightrider20244]

This is not going away @ZackPolanski @TheGreenParty I'm gonna post it everyday until you retract that you want to build your own community

[Jo Barker @JMVBarker]

@KEdge23 Danger!

[Jo Barker @JMVBarker]

@EstherMcVey1 Go Esther!