JK Rowling says she's turned down a peerage twice, after Badenoch says she'd give her a seat in the Lords
21 October 2024, 11:06
JK Rowling has said she has turned down a peerage twice and would do so again, despite Kemi Badenoch saying she would appoint the Harry Potter author to the House of Lords.
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Rowling said she had declined a peerage from Labour and from the Conservatives.
Badenoch, a frontrunner for the Tory leadership, last week praised Rowling’s hardline stance on gender.
She said she would offer the Harry Potter author a peerage, but did not know if she would accept it.
Rowling then broke with tradition to reveal she had already been offered such an honour on two occasions.
Read more: JK Rowling should be given a peerage, says Tory leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch
It’s considered bad form to talk about this but I’ll make an exception given the very particular circumstances. I’ve already turned down a peerage twice, once under Labour and once under the Tories. If offered one a third time, I still wouldn’t take it. It’s not her, it’s me. https://t.co/LnLoG8qc3p
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 20, 2024
"It's considered bad form to talk about this but I'll make an exception given the very particular circumstances," the author wrote on social media.
"I've already turned down a peerage twice, once under Labour and once under the Tories.
"If offered one a third time, I still wouldn't take it. It's not her, it's me."
If Badenoch wins the Tory leadership contest, she would be able to appoint some peers to the Lords as leader of the Opposition.
Former equalities minister Ms Badenoch claimed in an interview that she had "managed to get Dr Hilary Cass a peerage" following her controversial review of NHS gender identity services.
The Cass review, published in April, found care had been directed by "ideology on all sides" and was based on "remarkably weak evidence".
Cass took her seat in the House of Lords on Monday having been elevated to the upper chamber as an independent crossbench peer in Conservative leader Rishi Sunak's dissolution honours list earlier this year.
Rowling welcomed the findings, which led to NHS England ending the prescription of puberty blockers for children experiencing gender dysphoria.
Scotland's only clinic offering gender services to young people followed suit.
Vanessa Feltz reacts to Sir Christopher Chope's criticism of Kemi Badenoch
Rowling has long been advocating for spaces for biological women to be protected, and spoken up about trans issues in the sports industry.
The former Labour donor, who gave the party £1 million under the leadership of Gordon Brown, has previously claimed it has "abandoned women".
The Labour Party manifesto has pledged to "modernise, simplify and reform the intrusive and outdated gender recognition law to a new process" while also stating pride in the Equality Act "and the rights and protections it affords women".
"We will continue to support the implementation of its single-sex exceptions," the Labour Party has previously said.
