The “feminisation” of the Labour Party has meant older men are being replaced by “more amenable and leadable” women who are unable to focus on international issues, an MP has said.

Veteran MP Austin Mitchell, who has represented Great Grimsby since 1977, claimed his party was being weakened by all-women shortlists and growing numbers of women in an article for the Daily Mail.

He wrote that more female MPs would make the Commons "less exciting" and preoccupied with "family issues" and "small problems rather than big ideas".

“Whatever the state of Labour’s policies for the next election, there is little doubt that it will be fought by a younger, more attractive body of candidates,” he wrote.

“The parliamentary party is undergoing the biggest process of feminisation and rejuvenation embarked on since fabulous pink Camay soap promised to make us look a little lovelier each day.”

[...]

Complaining that Labour’s “pool of experience is being drained”, he claimed the rise of women would “feminise” party policies.

“Our new preoccupations will be social, educational and family issues, all brought to the fore by the feminisation of Labour through the obsession with All-Women’s Shortlists,” he wrote, calling the lists a “suspension of party democracy”.

Mr Mitchell added: “It cannot be denied that feminisation and youthification will make Parliament brighter, smarter and nicer.

“Yet the Commons will also be more preoccupied with the local rather than the international (not necessarily a bad thing) and small problems rather than big ideas and issues (a very bad thing as it will be less exciting and lead to sixth-form essays read out word for cut-and-pasted word, replacing oratory).

“The Left will be even smaller but the party more manageable and reasonable, for apart from obsessive feminism, women MPs are more amenable and leadable and less objectionable.

“But it might not make us tougher.”

[...]

In response to criticism on social media, Mr Mitchell tweeted on Sunday: “Who's anti women? All my aunties were women!”