Well, well, well. The Prime Minister’s nonsensical flip-flopping on the trans issue has been laid out for all to see and yet Sir Keir Starmer is still refusing to apologise for his dithering on the gender debate. More than that, he has today refused to say sorry for his emphatic opposition to the views (with which he now apparently agrees) of his former colleague and women’s rights campaigner Rosie Duffield.
In a strong PMQs performance this afternoon, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch tore into Starmer over his gender U-turn. And despite the PM being given multiple opportunities to apologise for his earlier claims that it was ‘not right’ to say only women had cervixes or that ‘99.9 per cent of women ‘of course haven’t got a penis’, Starmer remained silent. How very revealing…
During a grilling by the Leader of the Opposition in his first PMQs post-recess, Starmer was asked whether he accepts that when he said ‘trans women are women’ he was wrong. The PM was quick to obfuscate, telling the Commons he welcomed the Supreme Court judgment, urging people to ‘lower the temperature’ on the debate and insisting that his Labour lot will ‘continue to protect single sex spaces based on biological sex’. Unsurprisingly, Badenoch wasn’t impressed.
Mr Speaker, he can’t bring himself to admit that he was wrong. That was the question. But he spoke about respect and dignity and compassion and lowering the temperature. So will he now apologise to the member for Canterbury – the very brave member for Canterbury – for hounding her out of the Labour party simply for telling the truth?
Again, Sir Keir dodged the question, instead blaming others for making the matter ‘a political football’. The irony wasn’t lost on the Tory leader, who replied acerbically:
Mr Speaker, there was no apology for the member for Canterbury. There is no taking of responsibility. He talks about political football – he practically kicked her out of his party. He talks about my predecessor. What about the abuse I faced from his MPs, calling me a transphobe for supporting what the Supreme Court has now clarified in his words. And where was he? He hid for six days without commenting on the Supreme Court judgment. Why did it take him so long to respond? Isn’t it because he was scared?
Burn…
Watch the clip here:
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