Labour came under further fire today for supporting an election meeting where Muslim men and women sat apart.
The leading party figures who attended included Tom Watson, Liam Byrne and Jack Dromey, who is married to Labour deputy leader and arch-feminist equality campaigner Harriet Harman
The party insisted the segregation was voluntary, despite claims the audience were told they could not sit in mixed groups at the Birmingham community centre event.
Tory North West Leicestershire candidate Andrew Bridgen said: “On the one hand Labour is preaching about feminism and equality for women and on the other hand they are happy with a segregated audience.
“It shows how desperate they have become at the fag end of this campaign that they will do anything for a few votes. This shows Labour talking out of both sides of its mouth - as usual.”
Fellow Conservative Julian Smith said: “Labour are completely desperate, selling their values in exchange for a few votes.”
Ukip leader Nigel Farage also condemned the segregation, declaring: “If that is not turning our backs on a century and more of advancement for women’s rights then I don’t know what is.
“I believe that’s got no place in modern civilised Britain.
“Unless we’re prepared to stand up for who we are then we will be bullied by some of those extreme elements and I want to know from that the Labour Party, how in the name of your party can you have allowed that to have happened?”
The guest of honour at the weekend rally for voters mainly of Asian backgrounds was Sultan Mehmood Chaudry, the former Prime Minster of Azad Kashmir in Pakistan.
In 2010 he told the BBC he always visited the UK during elections “basically so I can tell people who to vote for” because most British Pakistanis were from his region and he knew “who will be the best candidates to help solve the issues in Kashmir”.
Former union official Mr Dromey issued a Tweet this weekend backing self-determination for the disputed territory of Kashmir.
He also Tweeted that the meeting had been attended by some 900 people and was a “a triumph of leadership and organisation” by the “inspiring” local councillors behind it.
A Labour spokesman today said: “There was no forced segregation. Speakers at the event included both women and men.
“Everyone was together in one room and all were treated equally and respectfully.”
Labour figures said privately that they had previously refused requests to speak at men-only Muslim events but accepted the Hodge Hill invitation after organisers ensured women were also invited.
The Labour speakers included former Birmingham MP Sion Simon MEP, whose Tweeted photos disclosed the segregation, as well as Mr Dromey, Tom Watson, Liam Byrne and Khalid Mahmood, who are seeking re-election.
Mr Mahmood, who led condemnation of the alleged Trojan Horse plot by hardline Muslims to influence Birmingham schools including reportedly requiring girls and boys to be separated in assemblies, insisted: “The meeting wasn’t as segregated as people are making out.
“The photo has been taken out of context.
“Nobody was told to sit anywhere.
“It just happened that men and women sat separately but what the photo doesn’t show is there were women and men together at the back.
“What people need to understand is that this part of a process of engaging with Muslim women and this was the start of that. It is about giving women in some communities the confidence to engage.
“People can say what they like. In 2010 I went to rallies where there were no women at all.”