Badenoch rejects Labour’s response to supreme court ruling as ‘shameless work of fiction’

Kemi Badenoch has rejected the government’s response to the landmark ruling that biological sex should determine whether people can use same-sex spaces.

The Conservative leader dismissed a House of Commons statement, delivered to MPs by equalities minister Bridget Phillipson on Tuesday, as a “shameless work of fiction”.

Badenoch, herself a former equalities minister, said: “I thank the secretary of state for advance sight of her statement, even if it was mostly a shameless work of fiction.

“I could not believe my eyes or my ears this afternoon. In 2021, the prime minister said it is not right to say only women have a cervix. In 2022, he said it is the law that trans women are women. In 2023, he said and I quote, ’99 per cent of women don’t have a penis’.”

She added: “I know what a woman is and I always have. The people of this country know what a woman is. We didn’t need the supreme court to tell us that, but this government did.”

In her statement to the commons this afternoon, Phillipson welcomed the verdict.

She told MPs: “This ruling brings welcome clarity and confidence for women and service providers. Single-sex spaces must be protected. Madam Deputy Speaker, this is personal to me.

“Before I was elected to this place, I ran a women’s refuge in the north east for women and children fleeing domestic violence.”

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