Kemi Badenoch on Tuesday demanded Keir Starmer apologise to women after he finally broke his silence on the Supreme Court’s biological sex ruling.
The Leader of the Opposition told the Mail that the Prime Minister should say sorry to those who lost jobs or were harassed in the row over equality law.
Sir Keir has now dropped his belief that transgender women are women.
In Parliament, Mrs Badenoch also urged him to apologise to MP Rosie Duffield who was hounded out of Labour after she spoke up for female-only spaces – and told him to crack down on the trans activists who defaced Westminster statues in an angry weekend protest against the landmark judgment.
Her comments came after Sir Keir belatedly spoke out on the declaration by Britain’s top court that the legal definition of a woman should be based on biological sex, saying: ‘A woman is an adult female, and the court has made that absolutely clear.’
He declined to repeat his previous statement that ‘trans women are women’ but his official spokesman later confirmed he no longer believes it.
On Tuesday night, Mrs Badenoch told this newspaper: ‘The Prime Minister should apologise to the many women who have been harassed and hounded out of their jobs by groups who have misapplied the Equality Act.
‘If Keir Starmer’s government really do respect the judgment, they should take a stand against the extremists who still believe it is acceptable to intimidate women.’
The PM hailed a ‘step forward’ by the Supreme Court as he faced questions on a post-Easter visit to promote the Government’s pilot scheme for free breakfast clubs in schools
The Leader of the Opposition told the Mail that the Prime Minister should say sorry to those who lost jobs or were harassed in the row over equality law (file image)
In the Commons, the Tory leader branded the Government’s claim of ‘always’ supporting single-sex spaces for biological women a ‘shameless work of fiction’, attacking the flip-flopping of Sir Keir and his top team on the issue.
Leading women’s rights campaigners also mocked the PM’s comments on the case that was won by For Women Scotland against the Scottish government last Wednesday.
Writer JK Rowling wrote on Twitter/X: ‘Imagine being such a coward you can only muster the courage to tell the truth once the Supreme Court has ruled on what the truth is.’
She shared statements in support of gender ideology made by leading Labour politicians including Sir Keir and asked: ‘Will any of them issue an apology or admit that they made a serious error in siding with well-funded activist groups lying about what the law actually said, and which had measurable, severe impact on some of society’s most vulnerable women?’
Feminist campaigner Julie Bindel said: ‘I am not grateful to Starmer because he now has to publicly admit he knows trans women (blokes) are NOT women. He added fuel to the fire that burned so many of us.’
In her Commons response to a ministerial statement on the ruling Mrs Badenoch highlighted Sir Keir’s previous support for contested gender ideology.
She pointed out that in recent years he had said it was ‘not right’ to say only women have a cervix and infamously claimed that ‘99.9 per cent of women don’t have a penis’, as well as claiming it is the law that ‘trans women are women’.
She told MPs: ‘The people of this country know what a woman is. We didn’t need the Supreme Court to tell us that.’ Mrs Badenoch pointed at the Labour frontbench as she told how ‘foolish politicians cheered’ as ‘something as simple as biological reality became politicised.’
Writer JK Rowling wrote on Twitter/X: ‘Imagine being such a coward you can only muster the courage to tell the truth once the Supreme Court has ruled on what the truth is’
She highlighted comments by senior Labour MPs now in the Cabinet, including Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy saying trans women should be allowed in female prisons and Foreign Secretary David Lammy calling opponents of gender self-ID ‘dinosaurs’.
She said she welcomed Labour’s U-turn and added: ‘Will he apologise to the member for Canterbury [Ms Duffield], who faced so many security concerns as she was hounded out of the Labour party, and was rebuked by the Prime Minister and many Labour MPs for stating what the Supreme Court has now ruled to be true?’
And she urged Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson to condemn the Labour ministers whom The Mail on Sunday revealed were secretly plotting to defy the Supreme Court ruling.
But, in a sign of the scale of unease within Labour about the judgment, more than a dozen backbench MPs said during the debate that it was making their trans constituents fearful.
Dame Emily Thornberry said: ‘Calls to Switchboard, the national LGBT+ helpline in my constituency, have skyrocketed.’
