Green Party on ’36 days for workers who menstruate’ proposal

The Green Party attracted a good deal of attention last week over a proposal to give workers who menstruate an extra 36 days of holiday a year.

Now, deputy leader Rachel Millward has expanded on what’s actually going on.

Does the Green Party really want to give 36 days of paid holiday to 'workers who menstruate'?
@lewis_goodall asks deputy leader Rachel Millward to confirm. pic.twitter.com/HFV0nuJvBm

— LBC (@LBC) June 28, 2026

Green Party suggestion met with controversy

The proposal attracted controversy for two reasons:

Right-wing commentators are immediately hostile to any policy which benefits workers, women, or trans people.
Right-wing commentators did not like the phrase ‘workers who menstruate‘.

So, they insult women by saying 'workers who menstruate', then they insult men by giving their female colleagues more paid leave.
The Green Party are just so unbelievably bad at even the most basic level. https://t.co/LzD0ori5Wj

— Ian O'Doherty (@OdohertyI64991) June 26, 2026

This led to the predictable ‘Can I identify as…?‘ questions from dolts like Alex Armstrong of GB News.

So under the Greens, I could now identify as a worker who menstruates and get an extra 36 days of leave… https://t.co/XGi3TlSSMX

— Alex Armstrong (@Alexarmstrong) June 26, 2026

Armstrong and his colleagues at GB News have form, of course, because they incorrectly identify as journalists.

Back to Millward, Lewis Goodall put the following to her:

Is it true that the party will debate a motion this autumn which would give 36 days paid extra holiday a year to, quote, workers who menstruate?

Millward answered:

It’s not true that that will necessarily be debated at all. So any member is free to put forward any motion, and I’ve seen all sorts of things over the years. There’s then another democratic process which prioritises which motions would get debated, and then, of course, there’s the debate itself…

There’s a big difference between a member putting forward a motion and that motion become policy. You’ve got lots of hurdles to get through along the way.

Asked if she’d support the measure, Millward answered:

I think it sounds not particularly practical in my view or feasible. Difficult to adjudicate and to work out how that would work in practice. Yeah, I think we’ve got bigger fish to fry. We’re looking at an inequality crisis, which is rampant. We’re looking at people who are really, really struggling with the cost of living.

We’re looking at food insecurity, the climate crisis, which we’re so feeling this last week… the biggest crisis that we face, and yet the government buries reports written by the joint intelligence committee – including the leaders of MI5 and MI6 – explaining that our food security systems might start collapsing as soon as 2030. I think we’ve got an awful lot of urgent things to focus on.

Better ideas than three days a month

To be fair, it does seem like there are better ways to handle this than with a specific allocation of period days.

Speaking as a person who has lived with people who menstruate, the length of time needed is not equal. I’ve known some folks who need no time at all and others who need more than three days.

Trying to even things out with three days per person would likely create an unfair situation in which a limited nunber of people would benefit from the policy as intended.

An alternative would be to tell employers that workers who menstruate get as many sick days as needed with full pay and no disciplinary consequences. There are no doubt other alternatives, and we imagine Green Party members, are considering them.

The important thing is that people in the Green Party is thinking about how to improve people’s lives, anyway, and is debating the pros and cons. This is a big difference to the Labour Party, in which members discuss what they want, and then the leadership does whatever Palantir tells them.

Featured image via the Canary