Wes Streeting Says People Cant Cope With Gay Army Leader

Wes Streeting has claimed “people cannot cope” with a gay man being defence secretary.

He said he had “experienced more online homophobia in the last three weeks than I have in my entire life”.

Streeting became the first openly gay man to be appointed to the role after Andy Burnham became prime minister last month.

In an interview with Iain Dale at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the former health secretary said he had been inundated with abuse since taking up the role.

He said: “I have experienced more online homophobia in the last three weeks than I have in my entire life.

“An unbelievable volume, because people cannot cope with the idea that a gay person might lead the armed forces of the United Kingdom.”

He said his sexuality “has been almost entirely unremarked upon in the media” since becoming defence secretary.

“I think, ‘great, here we are in the third decade of the 21st century it doesn’t matter, brilliant’,” Streeting said. “But of course online it matters to a lot of people.

“And I am proud of the fact that in my lifetime we’ve gone from gay people not being able to serve in the military to a gay defence secretary.”

However, Streeting said he had also been congratulated by people in the Ministry of Defence for being a symbol of progress.

He said: “In my first week, someone in the MoD said to me: ‘As a gay man, I’m really proud that we have our first gay defence secretary – It means a lot to many of us who remember the bad old days.’ I was quite touched by that.”

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