Tory MP who claimed trans people ‘confuse’ kids loses seat after 30 years
An anti-LGBT Conservative MP has lost the seat that he has held for 30 years, after a surprise Labour surge.
Julian Brazier has served as since 1987 as the Member of Parliament for Canterbury and has a reputation as one of the most regressive in Parliament on LGBT rights.
However, the Tory was finally dislodged at his eighth election last night, after a surprise Labour surge in the traditionally safe Conservative seat.
Labour’s Rosie Duffield pipped the Tory by just 187 votes.
Across his time in Parliament, Brazier voted against an equal age of consent for gay people, same-sex adoption, equal marriage and the repeal of Section 28.
He joined colleagues earlier this year calling for the censorship of a CBBC programme about transgender people.
Brazier had fumed: “This programme is very disappointing and inappropriate. Children are very impressionable and this is going to confuse and worry them.”
A strong critic of same-sex marriage, Brazier previously claimed gay people getting married would “undermine a treasured institution and could have unforeseen consequences”.
He had insisted: “We shouldn’t allow an institution of this importance to be re-defined simply to meet a rights agenda.
“It’s always been defined in a practical way which is quite restrictive when you think about it – there’s got be one of each sex, you can’t be related, you can’t be married to somebody else.
“I can’t see any logic as to why we should redefine marriage for the needs of one group of people and not others.”
Brazier had frequently compared same-sex unions to polygamy, claiming: “If we are going to say to the gay lobby that we are going to revise, completely change, this definition from one man and one women, what do we then say to the much larger group of Islamic people in this country?
“They have, in Sharia marriage, up to four wives. Why are we making a change for one group but refusing it to a larger group?”
He was handed a knighthood earlier this year for “political services”.
