MANCHESTER, England — Watch out Tory leadership hopefuls, there’s another culture warrior in town.
Gracing the main stage at the Conservative Party conference on Tuesday, the U.K.’s Science and Tech Secretary Michelle Donelan vowed to crackdown on the “creeping wokeism” she said is threatening scientific research.
“We are the party of facts, we are the party of evidence, we are the party of scientific rigor, and I will stand up for these core values. But increasingly, thanks to the slow creep of wokeism, this guiding light that Thatcher referred to is under attack,” said Donelan, referring to a speech by former Prime Minister and Tory icon Margaret Thatcher to the United Nations in 1989, where she said scientific research must be used to “cast a light ahead, so that we can move step by step in the right direction.”
Donelan said she would be launching a review of the use of gender and sex questions in scientific research and statistics, and would produce guidance within six months.
“Keir Starmer has said that these issues don’t matter to the public. He thinks that legitimate concerns of the scientific community and of millions of Britons don’t matter. Well conference, I think it does matter,” Donelan said, referring to opposition Labour leader Starmer, to murmurs of “hear, hear” from the audience.
“I think it does matter. I think it matters when scientists are told by university bureaucrats that they cannot ask research questions about biological sex … I think it matters that in 2021 Police Scotland said a male rapist who self identifies as a woman will then be recorded statistically as a female rapist by the police.”
In a further appeal to the right of the party, Donelan bigged up her record in standing up for free speech in the U.K.’s Online Safety Bill.
“Fundamentally, I believe adults should have more choice over what they see, not the state and not tech executives thousands of miles away because we are the party of free speech, and we should stay that way,” she said, citing her removal of rules clamping down on online content deemed “legal but harmful” in the bill.