One of the three candidates still in the race for the Labour leadership, has faced growing flak after it has emerged that she had once queried the right of gay students to have their own society at her university. Lisa Nandy had cited the gay students’ club at Newcastle as an example of a “controversial” group with “views some might find offensive”.The Wigan MP, had also said that many found it “unacceptable” that gay people did not accept straight students into their club and asked if they should be stripped of their funding.
As a deputy editor of the Newcastle University newspaper, she wrote in an article, “But what about societies that are controversial, whose views some might find offensive? Should they receive money — or at least as much money as others? The LGB [lesbian, gay, bisexual] Society for example, doesn’t accept straight members but we still have to pay for it, something many find unacceptable.
Nandy joins Rebecca Long Bailey and Keir Starmer on the ballot before voting opens on Friday. Emily Thornberry has dropped out of the race.
Lisa Harvey-Smith, has now accused Nandy of “causing division and antagonism by singling out minority societies” and added, “The society does not have any ‘views’. It is just a safe space in which LGB students can be themselves.”
The Labour leadership rivals have already split over LGBT rights. Nandy and Long Bailey last week backed a pledge card urging Labour to expel transphobic members. The card, by the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights, describes Woman’s Place UK and LGB Alliance as “transphobic hate groups”. Both seek to protect spaces for biological women only. Starmer has declined to endorse the card.
Nandy said: “I am a staunch defender of LGBTQ rights, I always have been and I always will be. I wrote about a debate around top down or grassroots funding at my uni almost 20 years ago, like a lot of student journalists do.
“The suggestion that I would do anything other than encourage greater understanding and tolerance is daft and offensive.”
