United Kingdom

Rishi Sunak pledges to defend women’s rights in first political leadership pitch

His campaign promised to “restore trust, restore the economy and reunify the country” and collected 10,000 online registrations in the first 24 hours.

“Biology is extremely important”

Although he has generally avoided getting into the culture wars, Mr Sunak has previously said he believes government policy on toilets and transgender people participating in sport should be guided by biology.

“You have to have compassion for those who are thinking about their identity and what that means for them, their families, as they potentially go through a change and we have to be compassionate and understanding about that,” he said in April.

“And we also have to have respect, especially for the views of women who are worried that some of the things that they’ve fought really hard for and the rights that are important to them are going to be eroded.”

“We have to respect that point of view.

“Biology is extremely important when we think about some of these very practical questions.”