The Guardian Claims Brexit Is a ‘Threat to LGBT Rights’

The Guardian has claimed Brexit is a “threat to LGBT rights,” and that LGBT people will “be vulnerable once again” when Britain leaves the European Union.

In the article, Jonathan Cooper OBE claimed that leaving the European Union puts LGBT people “at risk,” despite noting that Britain does have its own Equality Act which enforces the equal treatment of LGBT people.

“The EU charter, with its panoply of rights that could be applied to LGBT people, was adopted in 2000… And now, unless the House of Lords can work its magic, this government, under the cover of Brexit, is taking that charter away,” declared Cooper. “The elation of 2000 is replaced with a sense of foreboding. Westminster has done it again. It leaves us at risk. That defining legislation of Gordon Brown’s government, the Equality Act, protects us, but it does not provide a freestanding assertion of our right not to be discriminated against. The charter applies across the wide spectrum of EU law. Neither the Human Rights Act nor the European convention mentions us, even though the rights they contain have been interpreted in a way that does.”

“As our rights are rolled back what else might go? When the European court of human rights ruled that gay men and lesbians could not be dismissed simply because of their sexual orientation, Ian Duncan Smith announced that once returned to power, if the Ministry of Defence wanted to retain the ban, a Conservative government would re-introduce it,” he continued. “The current MoD is unlikely to behave so irrationally, but what about those bed and breakfast proprietors who don’t want LGBT people sleeping together in their homes? It offends their faith, they say, and after all it is their own homes. Why can’t they be protected by the law?”

Cooper went on to claim that women and children would also be affected, adding “all of us will lose our right to human dignity,” and listed a series of apocalyptic predictions.

“We’ll lose rights to run a business and have an occupation. The right to work-life balance goes too, as does protection of personal data. Academic freedom will go and a right to conscientious objection. Media pluralism is also going to be jettisoned,” he expressed. “The list goes on and I haven’t even started on rights in the workplace or high levels of health protection, as well as protections for the environment and the consumer.”

“Spare a thought for the LGBT community,” Cooper concluded. “We’re not only just about to lose our rights, we’re losing the very foundation of our liberation.”

Last year, the Guardian called the rise of free-thinking, LGBT conservatives “troubling.”