Keir Starmer has worried some of his MPs by appearing in a video next to an evangelical Christian who is a member of an organisation opposed to same-sex relationships.
Starmer was speaking to a group of Christian leaders in Manchester for a Twitter video over the Easter weekend. One of them was Glyn Barrett, a member of the council of the Evangelical Alliance, which calls homosexuality “unbiblical”.
This isn’t the first time the Labour leader has got in trouble for hanging out with certain religious types. In 2021 he was criticised and eventually apologised for visiting a church in Brent, north London, accused of holding anti-LGBTQ views.
The episode will add even more friction to the relationship between the leader’s office and the left of the party. As one Labour MP put it to the Chatterer: “I think that they clearly do not understand why this is problematic. It feels as if they want to have a fight for no reason. They have completely lost their way. I don’t know who it is in Keir’s office, but someone clearly is of the view that the LGBTQ community should be thrown under a bus.”
The divide could grow even larger. The Labour leadership has flip-flopped over the party’s policy on gender recognition reform, appearing less committed to updating the Gender Recognition Act after the SNP‘s attempt to introduce self-identification of gender in Scotland was blocked by the UK government. Now, GB News reports that a leaked copy of the Labour Party Policy Handbook shows the party has in fact dropped its commitment to self-ID and instead will try to “build a consensus” on the issue.
If that is the case, the Chatterer expects to hear even more choice words from angry Labour MPs.
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