Labour probing their own equality adviser for ‘offensive’ tweets
A TRANSGENDER model appointed to advise Labour faces investigation over a stream of offensive social media messages, John McDonnell said yesterday.
Munroe Bergdorf was handed the role advising on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues despite being dismissed by L’Oreal in a row when she claimed all white people are racist.
She has also labelled suffragettes ‘white supremacists’ and dubbed gay Conservative activists ‘a special kind of d***head’.
Over the weekend it emerged that she labelled a Twitter follower a ‘hairy barren lesbian’ in 2012 and also said she wanted to ‘gay bash’ a TV star – comments she has apologised for.
Confronted with the remarks yesterday – as thousands of women took to the streets of London to call for equality – Shadow Chancellor Mr McDonnell said responsibility for Miss Bergdorf lay with Jeremy Corbyn.
He told Sky News she was employed ‘directly’ by Mr Corbyn’s office – something Labour sources later denied – and that it would now investigate the issue.
‘I don’t know the individual concerned,’ he said. ‘I know she’s been appointed as one of our advisers, we’ll be talking to her about her views.
‘That will be a matter for her employers, she’s employed directly, I believe, by the leader’s office. I’m not sure about this particular issue so it will be obviously investigated by the leader’s office.’
Miss Bergdorf, 31, announced her role as LGBT adviser to equalities spokesman Dawn Butler last week, by posting a picture of herself with Mr Corbyn.
Her remarks prompted demands from gay Tory MP Nigel Evans that she be sacked. ‘I’m absolutely shocked,’ he said. ‘I don’t know which community she is representing but it is certainly not mine.’ In a statement, Miss Bergdorf, who was formerly a boy called Ian but began living as a woman at 18, apologised to those she ‘cruelly’ spoke about in the messages and the LBGT community, saying the remarks were ‘juvenile jokes’.
She said: ‘I am not going to try to excuse them, as there really is no excuse. Who I am now, is not who I was almost a decade ago when I wrote these tweets. Again, I am sorry for these disappointing posts.’
In an interview yesterday, she claimed she is a witch, a devotee of voodoo and takes part in witchcraft ceremonies.
A Labour source said: ‘Munroe Bergdorf is not employed by Dawn, the leader’s office or the Labour Party.
‘She’s not a formal adviser, she’s part of an informal stakeholder group which Dawn is setting up to allow her to have stronger links with the LGBT community.’
An academic who raised concerns about adults labelling children as transgender has been sacked as the Women’s Equality Party spokesman on violence against women and girls.
Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans said it was ‘abusive’ and was ‘imposing restrictions on children’. Members of the party – co- founded by comedian Sandi Toksvig – said her comments ‘promoted prejudice against the transgender community’. Dr Brunskell-Evans has now quit the party.