Labour MP Zarah Sultana bids ‘good riddance’ to Suella Braverman, pledges support for trans people
Labour MP Zarah Sultana presented the Campaigner of the Year award at the PinkNews Awards 2022. (PinkNews Awards 2022)
Labour MP Zarah Sultana has bid “good riddance” to Suella Braverman and promised to stand up for trans rights in a speech at the PinkNews Awards 2022.
The PinkNews Awards 2022 was supported by joint headline sponsors Lloyds Banking Group and United Airlines.
Ahead of presenting the Campaigner of the Year award at this year’s event, Sultana gave a motivational speech in defence of trans rights.
She vowed to “always stand up for our trans siblings and for the whole LGBTQ+ community”, adding she will “always fight any attempt to divide our marginalised communities because it’s solidarity that wins all the time.”
“It’s not just trans rights that are under attack, hate crimes against the whole LGBTQ+ community are on the rise across the globe and we see that basic freedoms are at threat,” Sultana told an audience at Church House in Westminster, London on Wednesday (19 October).
Zarah Sultana also listed a number of other human rights issues she wants to see addressed by the UK government.
Zarah Sultana: ‘Good riddance to Suella Braverman’
“From brave women in Iran in Kurdistan who are facing oppression, to those in the US fearing their right to be able to access safe and legal abortion services, and closer to home refugees arriving on Britain’s shores only to be demonised, detained and deported.
“And good riddance to Suella Braverman whose dream it was to see deportations on newspapers.
“As a Muslim woman in the public eye i’ve grown accustomed to daily abuse, but I know that our solidarity, every single person in this room, every single person outside of this room, it’s our solidarity that will win, our strength is in us uniting.”
Braverman quit the Conservative government on the same evening at the PinkNews Awards 2022 took place, just a few houses before the event began.
At the end of her speech, Zarah Sultana recalled the trade union saying “united we stand. Divided we fall”.
Campaigner of the Year Nemat Sadat with LGBTQ+ activist Peter Tatchell. (PinkNews Awards 2022)
Sultana presented the Campaigner of the Year award to winner Nemat Sadat, an Afghan-American queer activist and novelist.
Sadat has done important work in helping members of the LGBTQ+ community in Afghanistan escape the Taliban after it seized power in 2021.
In Sadat’s moving speech he gave thanks to LGBTQ+ activist Peter Tatchell, saying the British campaigner supported him when no one else did.
