In the last 3 days, 2 Cabinet Members have made statements directly at odds with their Government roles.
The campaign for Scottish National Party leader is underway and the name on everyone’s lips is Kate Forbes, but perhaps not for the reasons she would have hoped. On Monday February 20th she gave a series of interviews in which she stated openly that she is against same-sex marriage, something that has no bearing on her life as she is not looking to marry someone of the same sex, because her bible is against it. She said she would still vote against it today, and actually opposes a ban on conversion therapy.
Unsurprisingly, people on the whole have not responded well to this. It is 2023 of course, and most people - regardless of religion - generally agree that what two consenting adults get up to is their business, love is love and we could do with more of it in a world so filled with hate. Most people that is except Kemi Badenoch, the current Minister for Women and Equalities.
According the Government website, the Minister for Women and Equalities has two core responsibilities. First is developing an equalities policy that it is based on individual autonomy and dignity, and second is promoting equality of opportunity for everyone. Promoting equality of opportunity for everyone. Which means promoting that everyone, regardless of sexuality, is entitled to the opportunity to marry the person they love. That is her job. Which makes her comments on Tuesday all the more alarming. Because on Tuesday she stated that she admires Kate Forbes for speaking “honestly” about her opinion - though she added that she personally supports same-sex marriage. She said it would be “wrong” to condemn someone for their religious beliefs, but doesn’t seem to understand that by saying she “admires” people speaking out against equal opportunity, she is directly undermining the office in which she sits.
And she is not the only Minister to do that this week. Today, February 23rd, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said that violent far riot riots outside of a hotel housing asylum seekers were not “racist or bigoted” and were in fact “understandable.” She also went on to add she understands the frustration over large volumes of immigrants that cause problems to communities. She didn’t however mention that refugees and asylum seekers make up a grand total of 0.54% of the UK population, and that the problems in the UK as a whole have very little to do with such a tiny proportion of the population. She also didn’t mention that some of the people outside the hotel have openly stated they believe every person who reads the Quran is a paedophile, and that they wouldn’t have a problem if the immigrants in the hotel were Ukrainian. Which seems to tick both racism and bigotry boxes. The Home Secretary has many roles, one of the main ones being overseeing matters of national security. In a country where it was this month announced that the biggest extremist threat to our children is the far right, statements like this one by Suella Braverman seem to be entirely at odds with her responsibilities to protect national security, especially when head of MI5 - who she is tasked with working closesly with - has said that toxic racism and the rise of the far right do go hand in hand.
There has, as yet, been no comment from Downing Street on either of the statements made by the cabinet ministers.