Boris Johnson has been forced to stage a hasty retreat after an announcement that ministers were abandoning plans to ban so-called conversion therapy sparked a furious backlash. A Government spokesman had earlier confirmed that they were looking instead at ways of preventing it through existing law and “other non-legislative measures”.
It followed the leak of a Downing Street briefing paper seen by ITV News which said “the PM has agreed we should not move forward with legislation” to outlaw the practice.
However within hours of the announcement, the journalist who broke the original story quoted a senior Government source as saying legislation would be included in the Queen’s Speech in May.
