JK Rowling has strongly criticised Sir Keir Starmer for appointing Labour grandee Baroness Harriet Harman as an adviser on women and girls. The outspoken novelist pointed to Harman’s comments supporting trans rights, including counting trans women as women.
Following a significant defeat in the local elections, Starmer has turned to several veteran figures in an attempt to revive his premiership. These include Harman, a former Labour deputy leader and Britain’s longest-serving female MP from 1982 to 2024, as well as former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
However, Rowling blasted the Prime Minister’s latest move as reinforcing the belief that the Labour Party is for ‘smug, lanyard-wearing, luxury-belief-espousing cultural elitists’. Harman has previously spoken up in defence of trans people. In 2022, she stated: ‘As far as I’m concerned, women are women who are born women, but women are also women who are trans women.’
Rowling, a former Labour supporter, wrote on X: ‘Bravo, Keir Starmer, for getting in an Adviser on Women and Girls who thinks the definition of women and girls includes men and boys.’ She later added: ‘Once somebody’s proven they’re too frightened of being called ‘bigot’ to defend the most vulnerable, they’ve shown who they are.’
The author also dismissed any prospect of her returning to support Labour. In another post, she wrote: ‘Polite notice to those urging me to show blind tribal allegiance to a party that’s screwed over female nurses who want to change in a female-only space, female prisoners housed with male sex offenders and female rape survivors who want an all-female support service: nope.’
This controversy comes as the PM faces an uphill battle to hold onto his position, with several Labour MPs calling for his resignation. Labour suffered losses both in English councils and experienced defeat for the first time in Wales in Thursday’s set of elections.
Last night, Catherine West, MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet, announced she would trigger a leadership contest if cabinet members failed to move against Starmer by Monday. She told BBC Radio 4 her preferred option would be for the cabinet to select a new leader, but she would also consider seeking the 80 names required to force a contest herself.
