Jess Phillips Brands Anti-LGBT Lesson Protester A "Chancer"
21 May 2019, 13:31 | Updated: 21 May 2019, 13:38
The Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley labelled the organiser of protests against LGBT equality lessons a "chancer" who doesn't even have children at the school.
Jess Phillips was shown on social media confronting the organiser of protests outside a school which has been teaching LGBT equality lessons.
The situation has been on-going at several schools in the region with the Anderton Park School seeing almost daily protests at the gates at home time, led by Shakeel Afsar.
Mr Afsar claimed to have the backing of nearly 300 parents who, like him, want the school to suspend LGBT books and discussions, which he says offend most of the school's mainly Muslim parents.
Speaking to LBC's James O'Brien the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley said that she lives just three minutes away from Anderton Park Primary School.
Tensions rose outside the gates of the school on Monday after LGBT equality protesters were pelted with eggs.
Our equalities laws protect us all. I will not be called agressive for wanting to protect all of the community, Muslims too. This is doing deep damage to the Muslim community and these protestors do not represent Birmingham https://t.co/dMuTYN9zh2
— Jess Phillips (@jessphillips) May 20, 2019
Some children are being kept out of school, the MP said, but it was nowhere near the 600 which protest organisers had claimed.
Mrs Phillips said that protesters were presenting the community "terribly."
She said that the "angry, shouty," demonstrators who don't "like gay people" and say "terrible things about women" are not her "experience" of the Muslim community in the area.
Labelling the key organiser of the protests as a "chancer," Mrs Phillips said he was using the opportunity to "get a bit of attention."
She said that he was "wrongly informing" parents at the school and that he does not even have a "child at the school."
The leader of Birmingham City Council, Ian Ward, has said the authority is looking at the use of Public Space Protection Orders to ensure school pupils can attend lessons without "daily disruption."
