'Who came up with this sexist drivel?': Labour is blasted for its 'misogynistic' social media meme about housing - as the party's own female MPs hit out at the now-deleted tweet

The Labour Party has been blasted for its 'misogynistic' social media meme about housing after a slew of the party's own female MPs criticised the now-deleted tweet.

The post showed a woman looking at her partner as she lies in bed, with her thinking: 'I bet he's thinking about other women.'

But the man is captioned as thinking about Labour's newly announced housebuilding policy and Sir Keir Starmer's plans to build on brownfield sites.

The meme was posted at 12.30pm on Friday and quickly got spread around Twitter with elected Labour representatives as well as members of the public condemning it for making women appear as 'thoughtless creatures'.

It was posted on the political party's main Twitter account, which has one million followers, and racked up more than 1.5 million views before it was eventually deleted at around 9.40pm.

Labour MP Diana Johnson said the meme was 'awful' and she had 'made my views clear' to the party.

While her colleague, Labour MP Rosie Duffield, said: 'This advert has not been well received by women, especially Labour MPs. It is sexist and also the point of it is completely unclear.'

Labour for Walthamstow since 2010 Stella Creasy posted: 'Fwiw (for what it is worth) the labour policy on the ‘grey belt’ is a good. It will help unlock land that can provide vital housing and protect our green spaces too. In short it stands on its own, so lads you don’t need to meme it.'

Another colleague, Rupa Huq MP, said the policy was good but it was a 'bad choice' of campaign to promote it on. 

One Twitter user posted: 'Dearie me, the optics of this are AWFUL! Who came up with this sexist drivel & who passed it for publication?'

Halima Khan, former chair of Labour Party’s BAME staff network and governance and legal unit staff, said: 'This is exactly how the misogynistic Labour Party views all women and why there’ll never be a female Labour Prime Minister. 

'No self-respecting woman would advocate or stand for a Labour Party which represents them in this manner.'

One Twitter poll with 2,289 votes showed 89 per cent of people thought the decision to tweet the meme was made by a man. 

LBC radio presenter Sangita Myska also got in on the action and labelled the tweet a 'sexist degrading advert'. 

The post also received a backlash from members of the Tory Party.

Sayeeda Warsi, who served as co-chairwoman of the Conservative Party from 2010 to 2012, said: 'What a terrible tweet. When you believe you are enlightened about gender but haven’t even managed to get beyond gender stereotypes.'

Sara Britcliffe, the Tories' deputy chairman, said: 'Labour's latest social media post is nothing more than a patronising and sexist trope. 

'But it's to be expected from a party that has never had a female leader and has the Labour boys' club running their party.'

The Labour Party has been contacted for comment.