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Wes Streeting has called it “laughable” that rising racism and homophobia is a sign of free speech in a strongly worded intervention suggesting Labour needed to step up its defence of minorities.
The health secretary told the LGBT foundation on Monday he wanted to address “the elephant in the room” and said he understood why some were questioning “whether this government is really on our side”.
He said the scenes of far-right protests over the weekend were “not the kind of country any of us want to live in”.
He told an audience of healthcare workers: “Black and Asian members of our community have the added fear of an undercurrent, increasingly visible tide of racism in our country that cloaks itself in our country’s flag and laughably claims to be a champion of ‘free speech’.
“Free speech, that is, unless that freedom includes the right to worship a different God, or the right to march through central London protesting atrocities in Gaza or the right just to walk down Oxford Street without being called the p-word, the n-word, or having your hijab ripped, ripped off.”
He added: “I don’t think the government can afford to bury our heads in the sand about the fact that trans people in our country today feel less safe than they did 10 years ago.”
Streeting also said the government would try to find a way forward that gender and trans activists could live with.
“We’ve got to be able to have debate and disagreement, and we’ve got to be able to do it well, because otherwise what happens is division is exploited, our country becomes polarised,” he said. “And you see the sorts of scenes that we saw on the streets of London just this weekend. And I don’t think that is the kind of country any of us want to live in.”
The comments are some of the strongest yet from a cabinet minister and were spoken off-the-cuff, an ally of Streeting said. Over the weekend, MPs had shared fears that Keir Starmer and his ministers were not sensing the urgency of tackling far-right hatred after a mass nationalist rally in London on Saturday.
The prime minister later issued a statement saying there could be “no surrender” of the flag to racism and violence and condemned the intimidation of minorities.
Streeting suggested it was deeply unsettling that a conference for LGBT healthcare workers was controversial given the rows over trans rights, particularly within the NHS.
“A decade ago, conferences like this would have happened without anyone blinking, without a word of controversy,” he said. “Yet today, there is no shortage of people saying this is a waste of time and public money; that the whole equality, diversity and inclusion agenda should be cancelled. The reason I am here today is because when it comes to health equality, or too often, inequality is a matter of life and death.”
He said there was a “rising hatred that we’ve seen on our streets only in recent days” but said he fundamentally did not believe it was the true face of Britain.
He added: “This is still a country of people who are far more kind than they are hateful. And as history has shown over generations, in the end, hate never wins. Only love does.”
In an olive branch to the trans community, many of whom felt betrayed by Streeting’s early decision as health secretary to pause the use of puberty blockers, he said he knew “young trans people who are desperately worried not just by the toxicity of some of the debates, but about this community’s safety and wellbeing”.
“I know there are questions in our community about my motivation on this issue and the decisions that I took within days of coming into office,” he said. “My motivation has only ever been to make sure that medicine given to children is safe and effective, and grounded in robust evidence.
“More broadly, I’ve sought to acknowledge the tensions that have arisen between trans rights and the sex-based rights of women, so that as a country, we can find a way through that ensures equality, dignity, safety and inclusion for all,” he added.
Streeting has been talked about widely as a potential successor to Starmer, although friends have said in the past they understood he would need to reach out to the left of the party in order to secure support.
He has been vocally loyal to Starmer, whose position is under pressure amid plunging popularity and a series of embarrassing senior resignations.
Though Streeting is seen as likely to need to do a deal with potential leftwing rivals, he has the advantage of a parliamentary seat, unlike Andy Burnham, the other much-talked about potential candidate, who as mayor of Greater Manchester does not have a seat in the Commons.
