The love affair is over. Whatever its other failings, Labour could long count on the loyalty of LGBTQ+ voters. This was, after all, the party that abolished section 28. Although it is now hopelessly out of date, Labour’s 2004 Gender Recognition Act provided a pathway for trans people to be accepted for who they are. And yet now, in 2023, if Keir Starmer and his frontbenchers were to turn up to a Pride event, they would probably be booed and heckled by some.
That’s not to say Labour’s relationship with LGBTQ+ people was always easy. When Peter Tatchell stood as the party’s candidate in the 1983 Bermondsey byelection, he was subjected to a viciously homophobic campaign – the Liberal party described its candidate as the “straight choice” – and the Labour establishment did little to defend him. When challenged about this alleged witch-hunt, soon-to-be Labour leader Neil Kinnock allegedly declared, “I’m not in favour of witch-hunts, but I do not mistake bloody witches for fairies,” which he later denied, despite having used “woofters” in another newspaper profile piece.
