Angela Rayner hits out at ‘reckless’ Tory anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric: ‘We cannot go on like this’
"The British people want to see LGBT+ people treated with dignity, equality and respect"
The deputy leader of the opposition, Angela Rayner, has slammed the increase in anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric from the Tories.
During a speech at the Pink News Awards made on Wednesday (18 October), she made her thoughts on the state of the Conservative Party very clear.
The Labour politician said that for “far too long” progress has been blocked by “who think the way to win over the British public is pitting groups against each other.”
She went on: “Well, if anyone thinks that moving backwards on LGBT+ equality is the route to electoral success, they are in for a shock,” she said.
“We cannot go on like this” – Angela Rayner
″The British people want to see LGBT+ people treated with dignity, equality and respect.”
Rayner reminded the room of the current rise in LGBTQ+ hate crime.
According to Home Office figures, crimes against the trans community in England and Wales against the trans community went up by 11% in the last year.
She noted: “The truth is, the last decade has been an especially challenging one for the LGBTQ+ community.
“LGBTQ+ hate crime is soaring – including violent hate crime.”
Rayner continued: “I am sure many of you in this room have experienced or know someone who has experienced such unacceptable discrimination based on who they choose to love.
“The truth is, the last decade has been an especially challenging one for the LGBTQ+ community”
“We cannot go on like this,” she told the room.
It comes just days after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak launched yet another attack at the trans community
At the Conservative Party conference,he said during his closing speech: “We shouldn’t get bullied into believing people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t.”
“A man, is a man, and a woman, is a woman. That is just common sense,” he said.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been condemned for remarks made against LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, and trans women.
“Such disturbing comments are reckless and I condemn them in the strongest sense,” Rayner added of Braverman during her speech.
She backed Health Secretary Steve Barclay’s plans to ban trans women from female NHS wards.
”Trans women have no place in women’s wards or, indeed, any safe space relating to biological women,” Braverman said in a Sky News interview.
“The health secretary’s absolutely right to clarify and make it clear that biological men should not have treatment in the same wards and in the same safe spaces as biological women.”
Elsewhere, last month she argued that being gay and fearing discrimination wasn’t enough to qualify for asylum.