Brianna Ghey’s father demands apology from PM after transgender jibe in Commons
The father of murdered transgender teenager Brianna Ghey has demanded an apology from Rishi Sunak, saying he was “shocked” by the prime minister’s comments in the Commons today.
Speaking to Sky News, Peter Spooner said Mr Sunak’s remarks during PMQs, which the schoolgirl’s mother Esther Ghey attended, were “degrading” and “absolutely dehumanising”.
He said: “As the prime minister for our country to come out with degrading comments like he did, regardless of them being in relation to discussions in parliament, they are absolutely dehumanising.
“Identities of people should not be used in that manner, and I personally feel shocked by his comments and feel he should apologise for his remarks.”
Politics Live: Starmer meets Brianna Ghey’s mother
Peter Spooner, father of Brianna Ghey
Mr Sunak has been criticised for aiming a political jibe about transgender people at Sir Keir Starmer, saying the Labour leader had broken promises on “defining a woman”.
The prime minister has refused to apologise.
However, it is understood Brianna’s family has now been invited to a meeting about online safety – which her mother is campaigning to improve – with Mr Sunak and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan.
During the exchange with Sir Keir, Mr Sunak said: “We are bringing the waiting lists down for the longest waiters and making progress, but it is a bit rich to hear about promises from someone who has broken every single promise he was elected on.
“I think I have 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.”
Sir Keir has previously said that 99.9% of women “haven’t got a penis”.
The Labour leader, who met Brianna‘s mother on Wednesday, condemned the remark, with a chorus of opposition backbenchers calling out: “Shame.”
Brianna Ghey
“Of all the weeks to say that – when Brianna’s mother is in this chamber,” Sir Keir said.
“Parading as a man of integrity when he’s got absolutely no responsibility.
“I think the role of the prime minister is to ensure that every single citizen in this country feels safe and respected, it’s a shame that the prime minister doesn’t share that.”
Sir Keir Starmer has met Brianna Ghey’s mother, Esther Ghey. Pic: Keir Starmer/Flickr
Mr Sunak also faced calls to apologise from Labour MP Liz Twist during the session but did not directly respond to her call.
Tory MPs criticise Sunak’s remarks
He has even faced criticism from within his own ranks, with former junior minister Dehenna Davison saying it was “disappointing to hear jokes being made at the trans community’s expense” and warning in a post on X that “our words in the House resonate right across our society”.
Speaking on Times Radio, former Tory business minister Jackie Doyle-Price said it was “careless” and “very ill-judged” for Mr Sunak to use the joke “in that context”, but also accused critics of having “weaponised” it.
Mr Sunak’s press secretary later denied the remark was transphobic and declined repeatedly to say sorry for Mr Sunak’s language, saying it was part of a “legitimate” criticism of Labour.
She said: “If you look back on what the prime minister was saying, there was a long list of U-turns that the leader of the opposition had been making.
“I don’t think those U-turns are a joke, it is quite serious changes in public policy. I think it is totally legitimate for the prime minister to point those out.”
Treasury minister Laura Trott also told the Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge she did not think the prime minister had done anything wrong, adding: “What the prime minister was talking about today was absolutely nothing to do with this case.”
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Brianna, 16, was murdered by Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe who were both 15 when the schoolgirl was stabbed to death in a Cheshire park last February.
Last week, Jenkinson was jailed for at least 22 years and Ratcliffe for a minimum of 20 years. The pair, who are both 16, will be transferred to adult prisons when they turn 18.
During the sentencing when they were named for the first time, the judge said she had taken into account the “sadistic” and “transphobic hostility” of her killers.
Mr Sunak concluded PMQs by addressing Brianna’s mother, who has been campaigning to ban children from having access to social media apps on their phones.
Read More:
Rishi Sunak may be forced into an apology for clumsy ‘defining a woman’ attack line
Read Brianna Ghey’s family’s impact statements
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He said: “If I could just say also to Brianna Ghey’s mother who is here, as I said earlier this week, what happened was an unspeakable and shocking tragedy.
“As I said earlier this week, in the face of that, for her mother to demonstrate the compassion and empathy that she did last weekend, I thought demonstrated the very best of humanity in the face of seeing the very worst of humanity.
“She deserves all our admiration and praise for that.”
Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf says his party’s mission is to “remoralise” young people.
Speaking off the back of his party’s massive gains in the local elections, Mr Yusuf said young people were being taught to “hate their country” and that Reform’s mission was to change their morals.
“There has been an industrial-scale demoralisation, particularly of young people in this country, who are basically being taught quite deliberately that they should hate their country; they should be deeply ashamed of their country’s history; that the United Kingdom had a brutal empire,” he told The Times.
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“Look, of course, you know, the British Empire was not perfect, but I actually think overall the British Empire did much more good for the world than it did bad.”
He said the party’s mission was to “remoralise” the youth and that within a couple of months of gaining power, Reform would erect statues of great British figures and end “all this woke nonsense”.
He continued: “How many young people know who Isambard Kingdom Brunel is? Look at the character assassination that has occurred on the legacy of Sir Winston Churchill.
“The fact that they have to cover up his statue because they don’t want to provoke protesters. I mean that’s the sort of utterly indefensible so-called leadership that we’ve had and young people feel that in their bones.”
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Inside Reform’s election success
Read more:
Tory leader apologises to councillors as Reform makes big gains
‘I get it’: Starmer responds after losing Runcorn by-election to Reform UK
He said he believes Reform leader Nigel Farage’s message is “resonating” with young people and added: “I think that a lot of young people we speak to feel very smothered by a finger-wagging sort of teaching class.
“They feel very restricted, they feel a huge lack of opportunity ā¦ You’re going to hear from us over the next couple of years more and more of a policy platform for young people, for Gen Z and for millennials.”
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Voters turn to Reform UK
Mr Farage has been more focused on what his party’s trajectory is doing to the Conservatives, saying in his column for The Telegraph that Kemi Badenoch’s party had been “hollowed out” and is experiencing a “strange death” due to the rising popularity of Reform.
He said the UK had reached a “new political age”, reiterating earlier claims that two-party politics “is finished”.
Reform chairman Zia Yusuf will be appearing on Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips from 8.30am this morning.
OKX founder and CEO Star Xu has publicly defended the crypto exchange after Tron founder Justin Sun accused it of failing to act on a law enforcement request to freeze stolen funds following a recent hack of Tronās official X account.
āOKX also has consumers protection policy according to law, we canāt freeze a customerās funds according to your personal X post or an oral communication. I think you should understand it as the CEO of HTX,ā Xu said in an X post.
OKX says there is no communication in the spam box, either
Xu said that the crypto exchange had not received any related correspondence through OKXās official channels. āOur LE cooperation team just checked the email, including the spam box; we havenāt received any request related with this case,ā Xu said.
In what is now an unavailable X post, but was screenshotted by Xu, Sun had earlier claimed that OKX has not responded to a āfreeze noticeā sent to its official email address from a ārelevant law enforcement agency.ā Sun said that he had no other way to contact OKXās compliance department.
āThese stolen funds do not belong to me; Iām acting to protect the community,ā Sun said. On May 3, Tron DAO told its 1.7 million X followers that its account had been compromised. Tron explained that during the breach, an unauthorized party posted a malicious contract address, sent direct messages, and followed unfamiliar accounts.
āIf you received a DM from our account on May 2, please delete it and consider it the work of the attacker.ā
In response to Sunās claims of inaction, Xu publicly called on him to provide a screenshot showing when and where the law enforcement request was made.
The Tron incident is one of several recent security breaches involving high-profile crypto accounts on X.
Related: Over 14,500 Tron addresses at risk of silent hijacking
Kaito AI, an artificial intelligence-powered platform that aggregates crypto data to provide market analysis for users, and its founder, Yu Hu, were the victims of an X social media hack on March 15. The hackers opened up a short position on KAITO tokens before posting that the Kaito wallets were compromised and advised users that their funds were not safe.
The Pump.fun X account was compromised on Feb. 26 to promote a fake governance token called āPUMPā and other fraudulent coins.
Meanwhile, the X account of UK member of Parliament and Leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, was hacked to promote a scam crypto token.
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