Orthodox Christians should expect no compromise from the Labour government on its planned conversion therapy ban or on any other aspect of its LGBT agenda.
The Christian Institute has said that the U-turns on conversion therapy bans in Scotland, Ireland and Sweden show that it is possible to persuade politicians of the problems with such proposals. The CI had threatened to seek a judicial review into the Scottish government's "deeply repressive" plans.
But unfortunately the reason why the Westminster government led by Sir Keir Starmer, wielding a huge parliamentary majority, will not back down on outlawing conversion therapy, including a full trans-inclusive ban, is because of its rigid ideological commitments.
In an article for The Daily Mail in 2022, Peter Hitchens, a former Marxist, now an Anglican Christian, argued that Starmer's "revolutionary past" gives the lie to the notion that he is a moderate socialist.
Hitchens wrote two years before Starmer led the Labour Party to victory after 14 years out of power in July's General Election: "Well, long, long ago in the sunny 1960s, I was myself a revolutionary Marxist, out on the dangerous edge of politics. Later, I was mixed up in the strange wild world of London's Labour Party ...There I learned the codes and symbols of the Left, which most journalists do not know.
"That ignorance is one of the many reasons why Sir Keir Starmer has risen to the top of the Labour Party without anyone really noticing what he is. You are about to find out. But why don't you know already?"
Hitchens showed that, despite his image as a Labour moderate, Starmer has never disowned his revolutionary past. In an interview for the left-wing New Statesman magazine in 2020, he was asked about his radicalism in the 1980s, when he was known as 'red-green'.
"Starmer's replies were anything but embarrassed," Hitchens wrote. "The 'red-green' label combines social radicalism and identity politics with green zealotry. It explains Sir Keir's studied hesitancy when asked about whether a woman can have a penis."
Starmer could not have been clearer about his commitment to LGBT ideology when he said: "The big issue we were grappling with then (in the 1980s) was how the Labour Party, or the Left generally, bound together the wider movement and its strands of equality — feminist politics, green politics, LGBT — which I thought was incredibly exciting, incredibly important."
Hitchens concluded: "The British public have been given little reason to doubt the official story that Sir Keir is a respectable 'moderate' who will do nothing radical. The Tory Party think they can risk letting him into Downing Street.
"Well, you just wait."
The neo-Marxist ideology driving Starmer's government is also the reason why Christians should not expect any real reversal of Labour's transgender agenda, despite the Cass Review in April into NHS treatment for children and young people with gender dysphoria.
The review by Dr Hilary Cass warned of the dangers of doctors prescribing puberty blockers for children: "The rationale for early puberty suppression remains unclear, with weak evidence regarding the impact on gender dysphoria, mental or psychosocial health. The effect on cognitive and psychosexual development remains unknown."
But the Cass Review has not stopped NHS England from continuing to roll out new "specialist gender centres for children and young people". In August, it announced:
"NHS England will roll out up to six new specialist regional centres by 2026 to provide tailored gender services for children and young people, based on recommendations in the Cass Review."
Though NHS England announced in March, just before the Cass Review was published, that doctors would stop "routinely" supplying puberty blockers to children, they are not banned from prescribing them to under-18s as part of "clinical research" at gender centres.
In August, Labour's Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting expressed his commitment to the transgender agenda: "As well as rolling out new services, NHS England is setting up a clinical trial to establish the evidence on puberty blockers, because children's healthcare should always be led by evidence.
"I want trans people in our country to feel safe, accepted, and able to live with freedom and dignity."
Pro-family campaign group CitizenGo has warned: "The Labour government is planning to experiment on vulnerable children. In January, the NHS will start puberty blockers clinical trials that will damage the health of thousands of children.
"We can't let Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting push their harmful agenda. Using vulnerable children to test and legitimise these drugs is disgraceful."
CitizenGo has launched a petition against the government's plans. But the unfortunate reality is that Labour's unassailable majority in the House of Commons means there is nothing CitizenGo or any other campaign group can do to stop the government from further entrenching LGBT ideology and practices.
Julian Mann is a former Church of England vicar, now an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
