‘Hallelujah!’ Kemi Badenoch hails ‘victory for women’ as she takes swipe at Keir Starmer

Kemi Badenoch has heralded the end of “the era of Keir Starmer telling us that some women have penises” following a landmark Supreme Court ruling. Judges ruled on Wednesday that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex.

The Tory leader said: “Saying ‘trans women are women’ was never true in fact and now isn’t true in law, either. A victory for all of the women who faced personal abuse or lost their jobs for stating the obvious. Women are women and men are men: you cannot change your biological sex. The era of Keir Starmer telling us that some women have penises has come to an end. Hallelujah!"

In 2023, Sir Keir said 99.9% of women “haven’t got a penis”.

But he later changed his position to say that a woman has a vagina and a man has a penis.

Russell Findlay, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, called it “a victory for women across the United Kingdom and a victory for common sense”.

Campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) brought a series of challenges, including to the UK’s highest court, over the definition of a woman in Scottish legislation.

The dispute centres on whether someone with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) recognising their gender as female should be treated as a woman under the UK 2010 Equality Act.

FWS has previously said not tying the definition of sex to its “ordinary meaning” could have far-reaching consequences for sex-based rights, as well as “everyday single-sex services” like toilets and hospital wards.

However, lawyers for the Scottish Government told the Supreme Court at a hearing in November that a person with a GRC is “recognised in law” as having changed sex.

In a ruling on Wednesday, justices at the UK’s highest court unanimously ruled in FWS’s favour.

A women’s rights campaigner has described the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of “woman” as “wonderful”.

Speaking outside the court after the ruling, Grahame Park Girl, of the Turf Underground Resistance Network (Turn), said: “It’s the only common sense decision you can make. Anything else would be farcical and appalling for women’s rights.

“I haven’t boiled down into nitty gritty yet. There’s going to be some reading, but the headline that women are biological females, not men with a certificate, is wonderful.

“This is far from the end of the fight – this is just one battle among many women’s rights.”

Asked about the importance of the ruling, the campaigner said: “I think it’s going to make a huge difference to organisations and businesses who until now have been led down the garden path by ‘Stonewall law’ (and) by incorrect guidance being given by the Scottish Government.”