Brianna Ghey’s father has called on Rishi Sunak to apologise for his ‘degrading’ comments at Prime Minister’s Questions. Peter Spooner told Sky News:
For the Prime Minister of our country to come out with degrading comments like he did, regardless of them being in relation to discussions in parliament, they are absolutely dehumanising. Identities of people should not be used in that manner, and I personally feel shocked by his comments and feel he should apologise for his remarks.
As reported earlier, Sunak didn’t edit his oft-used script about the number of things Keir Starmer has flip-flopped on at PMQs today, despite having just heard that Brianna Ghey’s mother Esther would be in the public gallery. He did, at the very end of the session, pay tribute to Ghey as ‘the very best of humanity’, but didn’t withdraw his joke about Starmer struggling with ‘defining a woman – although, in fairness, that was only 99 per cent of a U-turn’.
This is just the latest example of Sunak’s tendency to go into broadcast mode to the extent he forgets to show his humanity. Brianna’s murder had, in part, a transphobic motive and to not edit a script with the knowledge her mother was supposed to be in the gallery (she actually arrived a bit later and missed the exchange) seemed unthinking.
Once again, the trans debate has ended up being nastier than it needs to be, and politicians have a hugely important role in shaping public discourse. It is also a misreading of many of those who hold a gender-critical position, who don’t think it’s very funny that Labour has had such agonies over biological sex and gende, either. The gender debate is too serious for it to become part of a silly joke that’s trotted out at Prime Minister’s Questions, and Sunak doesn’t help the very people he claims to represent – those who are concerned about the erosion of sex-based rights – to be so flippant.
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