Pat McFadden has jumped in to defend Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, insisting he’s not changed his stance on the legal definition of a woman, despite a lot of people thinking otherwise after the latest Supreme Court ruling.
Appearing on The Camilla Tominey Show, McFadden was put on the spot about whether Starmer was “fibbing” over his true views on gender, especially after all the confusion caused by his past comments. But McFadden stood firm, telling GB News: “No, that’s not the case.”
He went on: “Look, we welcome the court judgment that came out last week, and there’s been some new guidance from the EHRC as well to authorities and how they should implement this. We’ll take that forward now that the guidance has been published.”
Camilla didn’t let him off easily though, bringing up Starmer’s previous comments that “trans women were women” and that “one in 1,000 women can have a penis,” and pressing McFadden on why the PM seemed to be “pretending he said something different.”
When she bluntly called it “just a lie,” McFadden defended Starmer’s approach, saying: “All the way through this, he’s tried to treat people with dignity and respect, and we’ve still got to do that in this debate and in responding to the judgment. That’s what he’s tried to do. That’s what he said at Prime Minister’s Questions the other day, and that’s what we’ve all got to do here.”
He stressed that the new clarity from the court was welcome, and that Labour would move forward implementing the updated guidance, including in areas like sport.
Camilla also challenged McFadden about Labour’s treatment of ex-MP Rosie Duffield, asking why Starmer hadn’t apologised to her during PMQs. McFadden replied: “I think Rosie left the Labour Party for a number of reasons… she said she wouldn’t be interested in it and that she wouldn’t find it meaningful.
“And her letter of resignation, I was sorry to see her go, but her letter of resignation outlined a number of different policy dissatisfactions. This may have been one, but it wasn’t the only one, and so I think she left for a number of reasons.”
McFadden finished by underlining that Labour still stands by protecting single-sex spaces. “When we stood at the election last year, we said we would protect single sex spaces. We want to do that,” he said, pointing out that it’s consistent with Labour’s own Equality Act from 2010.
Meanwhile, Starmer had his own say in Parliament when pushed by Kemi Badenoch, saying: “I’ve always approached this on the basis that we should treat everyone with dignity and respect, whatever their different views, and I’ll continue to do so. “And I’ll tell you Mr Speaker for why, because when we lose sight of that approach, [we] make this a political football.”
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