Last night the Telegraph reported that Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi had been subjected to a trans rights protest while visiting Warwick University last week. Zahawi was hounded off campus by a group of students accusing him of “inciting hatred” by defining “adult human females” during a talk. In tweets posted by Warwick Pride LGBTQUIA+* Association last Wednesday, the group claimed:
“Zahawi has also made very concerning comments regarding corporal punishment and has made other transphobic remarks such as using the common transphobic dog-whistle “adult human female… the notion that Zahawi does not incite hatred is ludicrous at best.”
A source close to Zahawi says he took questions for nearly half an hour, and when asked about trans rights said the issue needed to be “handled in a loving way, whilst affirming that parents need to be consulted on issues relating to their children and that the rights of trans people need protecting, just as our rights do.” They continued without holding back:
“The hyperbole from a small clutch of hysterical students stands in stark contrast to Zahawi’s caring and nuanced take, which means theese protesters are due glittering careers in a Labour front bench that can’t grasp either the rudiments or biology nor the maturity of grown-up debate.”
The Telegraph’s report missed the key involvement in the protest by one student who interrupted Zahawi’s Q&A to rant about how parents shouldn’t get a look-in if their child thinks they’re transgender. The son of Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls, Joel Cooper.
A video posted by the Warwick Labour society shows Cooper interrupting the question session while another student interrupts him to point out the son of New Labour’s power couple was blacklisted from the event, as organisers believed he and the Labour society were planning to disrupt it. After concluding his monologue he sat down to applause from fellow Labour activist gatecrashers.
Joel shared the clip, premeditatedly recorded for him by a fellow activist, to his Instagram story, where no doubt follower dad Ed Balls saw it.
The intervention from the son of the Shadow Home Secretary comes the same week as Labour once again erupts into a row about whether women can have penises. In March, Joel’s mum, Yvette, was asked on TalkRadio whether she could define what a woman was, and refused to be “drawn down a rabbit hole on this”. The same Tory source quips “The Labour party seem totally unable to shake off penisgate, just as they were getting over cervixgate. It makes one wonder why they bothered with all women shortlists for all those years”.
*Don’t ask.
