Rishi Sunak mocked Labor leader Keir Starmer’s stance on gender identity as the mother of a murdered trans teenager attended parliament, sparking controversy Anger in the House of Commons.
Esther Ghey, whose 16-year-old daughter Brianna was killed by two classmates last February, is meeting with lawmakers as part of a campaign to prevent young people from accessing social media on their smartphones . Although she was not present at Sunak’s speech, she was in the Commons public gallery when opposition MPs demanded an apology from him.
Brianna’s father Peter Spooner later echoed the call, telling Sky News: “It’s degrading for the Prime Minister of our country to make such degrading comments as he did, whether or not they were relevant to discussions in Parliament. , they are absolutely inhumane.”
The prime minister made the comments during a typically heated exchange with Starmer, in which Sunak accused the opposition leader of erratic spending plans, with his party trailing in the polls. ahead of the ruling Conservative Party. He ended his answer by mocking Starmer last year when asked about his definition of womanhood.
“It’s so rich to hear the promises of a man who has broken every promise since he was elected,” Sunak told the Commons. “Pensions, schemes, gentry, public sector wages, tuition fees, childcare , a second referendum, the definition of womanhood – although to be fair, it’s only a 99% U-turn.”
The final line refers to an answer Starmer gave to The Sunday Times last April, when he was asked whether women could have male genitals. According to the newspaper, he replied: “For 99.9 percent of women, it’s completely biological… of course they don’t have a penis.”
The Conservatives have repeatedly raised the phrase as part of a wider strategy to exploit the so-called culture wars to close the 20-point gap with Labor ahead of a national election expected in the second half of 2024.
But the comments drew immediate condemnation from MPs, who knew Guy was attending parliament. Brianna’s hunting knife murder has shocked Britain, with a judge citing “hostility towards transgender identity” as an aggravating factor in sentencing Brianna’s killer last week.
Starmer told Sunak: “For weeks now, when Brianna’s mother has been in this room, she’s said it’s a disgrace. “He behaves like a decent person when he has absolutely no responsibility at all. .” When Labor MP Liz Twist used her question to demand an apology from Sunak, he ignored her, sparking further anger among MPs.
It was not until the end of the Prime Minister’s Questions that Sunak returned to the topic. Guy, he said, “brought out the best in humanity while seeing the worst in it.”
Despite this, Sunak’s spokesman made it clear that the Prime Minister would not apologize for the comments. “That’s a reasonable statement,” she told reporters.
The exchange with Starmer came just a week after Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle warned MPs to tone down their swearing, saying there was an “escalation of unhelpful exchanges”.
Sunak pledged to restore professionalism and integrity when he took office in late 2022, following the chaos of former chancellor Liz Truss’ brief government and Boris Johnson’s ethical lapses.
However, the Prime Minister sparked widespread criticism this week when he shook hands with a £1,000 bet during an interview with presenter Piers Morgan over whether flights to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda would take off before the election. .
Opposition politicians accuse Sunak of gambling with people’s lives and being out of touch with ordinary Britons given the scale of the stakes during the cost of living crisis. The next day, Sunak’s office tried to retract the bet, saying the Prime Minister was “not a gambler”.
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