Kemi: Free speech is cornerstone of UK
A RISING star of the leadership contest has revealed how she had to fight woke civil servants to push through a ban on gender-neutral toilets.
Kemi Badenoch told how Whitehall officials tried to thwart her recently announced plan to ensure all new public buildings should have separate bathrooms for men and women.
She also said she had met doctors who were afraid to speak freely and teachers who were under pressure to stop using the word woman.
The former minister, whose bid to succeed Boris Johnson has been backed by Michael Gove, said: ‘As a Conservative, I believe that the right of an individual to make up their own mind is the cornerstone of a good and free society.
‘We cannot hope to function well as a society if we cannot debate ideas. The chilling effect is all too real.’
The 42-year-old, who quit as local government, faith and communities minister last week, told a free speech event in Parliament yesterday: ‘As a minister, I met clinicians unable to express honest professional opinions about patients, schools and NHS trusts who felt pressured to end the use of the words woman and girl.
‘On the abolition of gender-neutral toilets, you wouldn’t believe how tough it was to get that through. I had civil servants writing on the notes I had put out saying you can’t say that, you need to check whether that’s something you’re allowed to say.’
But she insisted, to applause from the audience: ‘I didn’t change a word.’
Miss Badenoch said it was wrong to claim concerns over free speech ‘are a cover for bigoted white men’, pointing out that ‘Left-leaning feminists’ such as JK Rowling were being persecuted.
She added: ‘The purpose of the intimidatory mob rule directed at these women has one clear objective – to silence them.’