Unusually among male politicians of the time, he supported the actions of militant suffragettes such as the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).

[2] He was unable to gain official Labour Party support, and instead ran as the "Women's Suffrage and Socialist" candidate.

[4] He was supported by his Constituency Labour Party (CLP), including J. H. Banks and Edgar Lansbury, by some prominent Labour figures including Keir Hardie and Philip Snowden, by Liberal Party MP Josiah Wedgwood and by journalist H. N. Brailsford.

Millicent Fawcett, leader of the WSPU's rival the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies also campaigned for Lansbury.

She supported his campaign, but was critical of him for standing prematurely, against counsel from the labour movement, and for prioritising women's suffrage above all other issues.

Lansbury strongly disagreed with this, and in Parliament in the summer of 1912, he told H. H. Asquith, the Liberal Prime Minister "You will go down in history as the man who tortured innocent women.

The WSPU moved away from Lansbury and became increasingly anti-socialist, while this was a decisive point in Sylvia Pankhurst's split from her family towards communism.