Wes Streeting Receives Unbelievable Homophobic Abuse In New Role

Wes Streeting has suffered an “unbelievable volume” of homophobic abuse since becoming defence secretary, he has revealed.

He said it was clear that many people online “cannot cope with the idea” of a gay man in the role.

Streeting was brought back into the cabinet by Andy Burnham after resigning as health secretary under Keir Starmer.

Speaking at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, he said his sexuality had been “almost entirely unremarked upon in the media” when he was put in charge of the Ministry of Defence.

But he said that “online it matters to a lot of people”.

Streeting said said the role was an opportunity for him to “challenge this sort of stereotype that clearly persists in dark corners of the internet”.

Despite the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967, it remained a criminal offence for military personnel until 1994.

Even after that date, homosexuality remained classed as “conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline” until 2000, meaning service personnel could still be dismissed for being gay.

Streeting added: “I am proud of the fact that in my lifetime we’ve gone from gay people not being allowed to serve in the military to a gay defence secretary.

“And in my first week, someone in the MoD said to me, you know, as a gay man, I’m really proud that we have our first gay defence secretary, and it means a lot to many of us who remember the bad old days.”

Streeting also said Andy Burnham “probably” would not have become prime minister if he had not resigned as health secretary.

“What I think my resignation did that week was force choices for others,” he said.

Streeting also revealed that he had ditched his plan to challenge for the Labour leadership after talks with Burnham during the Makerfield by-election campaign.

He said: “I sort of went in with the aim of saying I think we can show a different way of doing politics in terms of how we debate the future of the Labour Party and how we conduct ourselves in a contest.

“And we sat around over a cup of tea, talking about what had gone wrong. And inevitably, when you talk about what’s gone wrong, you give hints to each other about what you think you need to do to make it right.

“And the more we were talking, the more I was thinking, how much do I fundamentally disagree with this guy on anything?”

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.