During his speech to the Labour Party conference (September 23), the Labour Leader, Ed Miliband MP, announced that the former soap star and Labour MEP Lord Cashman would serve as the Labour party’s LGBT rights envoy.
Mr Miliband said that, at a time when spectacular progress had been made regarding LGBT issues in the UK, LGBT rights “are going backwards” abroad.
He said to Conference: “We’ve made extraordinary progress on lesbian and gay rights over the last 20 years. When I think about the transformations, growing up into adulthood? It’s the biggest transformation.”
“We’ve made such progress on equality. But we have to face the fact that internationally things, if anything, are going backwards.
“We can’t just let that happen. We can’t just say that’s okay. The next Labour government will make sure that we fight for our values and human rights all around the world.”
“So today I can announce that I am appointing Michael Cashman, Lord Cashman, as our envoy on LGBT rights all around the world.”
If Labour wins the next general election it would mean that Lord Cashman would become a UK Government diplomat.
Lord Cashman was one of the co-founders of gay rights charity Stonewall in 1989.