THE Royal British Legion (RBL) has been accused by a village branch of treating its women’s section as “second-rate citizens”, following sweeping administrative changes.

Women’s sections in the RBL across the country were informed before Christmas that from October, their National Standard would be laid to rest, county committees would disappear, the women’s section chairman would no longer be on the board of trustees and the organisation would no longer have a national conference.

Chiddingfold’s branch has joined others in protesting, claiming it was like “going back to the old days when women were subject to the men”.

Members are calling on the board of trustees to rethink their decision. In a letter to women’s section county and branch chairmen in January, written to clarify a “great deal of misunderstanding”, director general Chris Simpkins said the decision was taken by the trustees in December.

He said six options were discussed, ranging from ‘no change’ to disbanding the section altogether.

“Full integration of the women’s section within the legion, as a district, will reduce costs, therefore making more funds available for beneficiaries by, for example, fully integrating systems and processes and the size and cost of the women’s section annual conference will be much reduced,” he wrote.

Chiddingfold treasurer Sandra Gilbert, who has been a member for 20 years, and received the British Empire Medal for services to the community in the village and Haslemere in the 2015 New Year Honours List, was shocked both by the changes proposed and the manner in which members were informed.

“We feel it’s discrimination, considering the vast number of women members,” she told The Herald.

“The women are the ones who raise an awful lot of money. We are here to help the families of the armed forces. The branch celebrates its 70th anniversary this year but we don’t want to continue in a system where we will be under the thumb of the men, which is not what we have been doing in the past.

“We did not know anything about it, although negotiations had been going on for most of the year, until we were told in December and then it was delivered as a fait accompli.

“We will decide at our meeting at the end of March if we want to continue as a branch. The feeling at the moment is we don’t want to.

“We don’t want to carry on in a two-tier system in which we will be treated as second-class citizens.”

An RBL spokesman said: “The Legion women’s section has a long history of supporting the Armed Forces Community and we look forward to retaining the great wealth of experience, expertise and enthusiasm of its staff and members, while making administrative changes to ensure the charity fulfils its legal requirement of achieving the best use of funds in support of its beneficiaries.”

The charity told The Herald no branches were being forcibly closed as a result of the changes and said there would be “little or no impact” on the activities of the women’s branches.

It also denied claims the discussions had been kept from the membership, or that they had been denied a say in the process.