Gay MEP accuses David Cameron of ignoring homophobia

Illustrated rainbow pride flag on a pink background.

Michael Cashman, a Member of the European Parliament for the West Midlands, has revealed he has written to David Cameron three times about the failure of Tory MEPs to vote against homophobia, but has not received a reply.

On Wednesday we revealed that five Labour MPs wrote to Mr Cameron in 2006 asking him to distance himself from the homophobic campaign literature used by Sayeeda Warsi at the last election.

The Leader of the Opposition did not respond to that letter either.

A Conservative party spokesman told PinkNews.co.uk that Ms Warsi, who Mr Cameron appointed to his Shadow Cabinet as a spokesperson on Community Cohesion, does not have a problem with gay rights.

Mr Cashman, who is gay, said:

“Unless Cameron moves to censure the activities of his candidates and his MEPs, then his sham of inclusive politics will be revealed.”

Mrs Warsi’s 2005 general election campaign leaflet, reproduced at the end of this story, said:

“Schools are allowed to promote homosexuality and other alternative sexual lifestyles to your children.

“Labour reduced the age of consent for homosexuality from 18 to 16, allowing school children to be propositioned for homosexual relationships. Labour has let down our children.”

In an interview with The Guardian on Wednesday, Mrs Warsi said:

“I look back at lots of my election leaflets and think, ‘God – why did I phrase it like that? What was I on?’

“There was a whole team that was involved in my election leaflets. People used to kind of draft little bits together, and we’d throw it together and send it off to the printers.

“Looking back on it, maybe I could have used much better language than that.”

Mrs Warsi told The Guardian that the Conservative party’s position on Section 28 has changed but that her personal view is that sex education should be removed from all schools.

“I’ve made this absolutely clear: what people do in their private lives is absolutely their business. If people want to engage in heterosexual or homosexual lifestyles, then they can,” she told the paper.

Gay MEP accuses David Cameron of ignoring homophobia