Suella Braverman sparks outrage after LGBTQ+ flag comments

Rishi Sunak is facing calls to expel Suella Braverman from the Conservative Party following remarks she made about an LGBTQ+ flag.

Ms Braverman, MP for Fareham and Waterlooville in Hampshire, criticised the flying of the Progress Pride flag at the Home Office in comments that some found offensive.

Designed in 2018, the flag was created to represent people of colour in the LGBTQ+ community, as well as the trans community and those living with HIV/Aids.

Casey Byrne, a former Conservative candidate for Reading Borough Council and LGBTQ+ campaigner, said Braverman should be “expelled” for the comments she made at the National Conservatism Conference in the United States.

Ms Braverman is tipped to run in the contest to replace Rishi Sunak as leader of the Conservatives.

Speaking about the 2024 general election, she blamed “liberal Conservatives” for the party’s defeat.

She told the Washington conference: “Our problem is that the liberal Conservatives who trashed the Tory party think it was everyone’s fault but their own.”

Ms Braverman also criticised the flying of the Progress Pride flag at the Home Office to “show how liberal and progressive we are”.

In her speech, she said: “I couldn’t even get the flag of a horrible political campaign I disagreed with taken down from the roof of the government department I was supposed to be in charge of.”

She then appeared to describe teenagers having gender transition surgery as “mutilation”.

She said: “The Progress flag says to me, one monstrous thing: That I was a member of a government that presided over the mutilation of children in our hospitals.”

On the NHS website, surgery is only listed as a treatment option for gender dysphoria for adults.

Mr Byrne, from Reading, said she should be “ashamed” and that her words had “real potential to cause harm to LGBT+ people”.

Speaking to the BBC, he said: “Suella Braverman has crossed a very clear line that only her expulsion from the Conservative Party, would be an appropriate consequence.

“Rishi Sunak, as leader, should expel her from the party and send a clear message – we will not tolerate hate.”

Johnny Luk, a former parliamentary Conservative candidate for Milton Keynes Central in Buckinghamshire, also condemned Ms Braverman’s speech and called for her to be expelled from the party.

He said he had been “appalled” by her comments.

“Her hysterical tone attacks a segment of the community in an inflammatory way and promotes a politics of division which does not help address the issues about trans rights and safe women’s spaces,” he added.

Ms Braverman made a second speech on Tuesday at a Westminster conference of Popular Conservatism where she spoke of the need to insulate government bodies from what she called the “lunatic woke virus”.

The BBC has contacted Suella Braverman, the Conservative Party and the Home Office for comment.

Additional reporting by PA Media.