Keir Starmer has angrily confronted Rishi Sunak in the Commons as the prime minister derided Labour’s policy on transgender rights after being told that the mother of the murdered teenager Brianna Ghey was watching from the public gallery.
Starmer began his first question of PMQs by saying Esther Ghey was watching the session. He was scheduled to meet her afterwards.
“This week, the unwavering bravery of Brianna Ghey’s mother, Esther, has touched us all. As a father I can’t even imagine the pain that she’s going through. And I’m glad that she’s with us in the gallery here today,” Starmer said.
Later, responding to a question from Starmer on the government’s failure to cut hospital waiting lists, Sunak said: “It’s a bit rich to hear about promises from someone who’s broken every single promise he was elected on.
“I think I counted almost 30 in the last year: pensions, planning, peerages, public sector pay, tuition fees, childcare, second referendums, defining a woman – although in fairness that was only 99% of a U-turn. The list goes on but the theme is the same. It’s empty words, broken promises and absolutely no plan.”
Starmer has previously said “99.9%” of women do not have penises, though Downing Street was unable to say whether this was what Sunak had been referring to.
An evidently angry Starmer replied: “Of all the weeks to say that, when Brianna’s mother is in the chamber. Shame. Parading as a man of integrity. When he’s got absolutely no responsibility.”
Sunak ignored this in his next reply. When asked later in the session by Labour’s Liz Twist to apologise to Brianna’s mother, he ignored the question, despite shouts of “apologise” from the opposition benches.
At the end of PMQs, Sunak praised Esther Ghey, saying she represented “the very best of humanity in the face of seeing the very worst of humanity, and she deserves all our admiration and praise”. He did not apologise, however.
It is understood that while Sunak made the comments after being told Ghey was watching, she actually arrived in chamber slightly late and so missed the initial exchange.
Downing Street afterward said the prime minister stood by what he said in the chamber. Sunak’s press secretary said: “It is legitimate in the house to be able point out the changes in position the leader of the opposition has made.”
Asked if the prime minister thought it was acceptable to use trans people as the punchline to a joke, the press secretary said: “I don’t accept that characterisation.”
A Labour spokesperson said: “We don’t think that the country wants or deserves a prime minister that is happy to use minorities as a punch bag. The comments were really deeply offensive to trans people, and he should reflect on his response there and apologise.”
Sunak and his ministers routinely attack Labour’s position on transgender rights. Last year the party changed its policy on a self-identification system that would let people officially change their gender without a medical diagnosis.
Last Friday, Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, both 16, were sentenced for murdering 16-year-old Brianna after luring her to a park in Cheshire in February 2023. Ratcliffe was found to have been partly motivated by hostility to Brianna’s transgender identity.
Since the sentencing, when the killers were identified for the first time, Esther Ghey has called for “empathy and compassion” towards their families, as “they too have lost a child” and “must live the rest of their lives knowing what their child has done”.
Jenkinson’s family thanked Brianna’s mother for her “incredible selflessness and empathy towards our family”.
