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Ann Widdecombe has prompted a backlash after suggesting "science may produce an answer" to homosexuality.

The new Brexit Party MEP - a veteran campaigner against LGBT rights - made the remarks while defending support she gave to "gay cure" treatments.

The former Tory home affairs chief was hauled up on a 2012 article that defended "gay conversion" therapy, and said the "homosexual lobby" was stopping people who want to turn straight from doing so.

Critics say "gay conversion" is unethical and people are pressured into it. Theresa May has branded the practice "abhorrent" and vowed to ban it.

But Ms Widdecombe today defended her comments and went further, telling Sky News science may yet "provide an answer" to the question of whether people can "switch sexuality".

Gay Labour MP Wes Streeting said: "Ann Widdecombe is a relic from a bygone era, whose petty prejudices are out of touch with the vast majority in Britain.

"It's only a shame that science can't cure Ann Widdecombe."

Fellow Labour MP Stephen Doughty, co-chair of the LGBT+ Parliamentary Labour Party, said: “Ann Widdecombe needs to stick her sick, twisted prejudice back where it belongs - back in the 19th century.

(Image: PA)

"Surely Nigel Farage will now be suspending her from the Brexit Party and removing the party whip? Her comments put young people struggling with their sexuality at risk. She should be ashamed."

A third Labour MP, Chris Bryant, added: "However she dresses it up in sequins there's something really nasty at the heart of what she says.

"She clearly thinks there's something wrong with being gay and wants to cure us or make us disappear.

"Sadly every time she adds a little bit of this poison to the well another gay teenager will be bullied or harm him or herself."

Strictly Come Dancing dancer Robin Windsor - whose show Ms Widdecombe appeared on in 2010 - posted an emoji of a one-finger salute.

Stephen Fry added: "Will science ever find an answer to Anne Widdecombe?"

Ms Widdecombe suggested today that it would be wrong to "deny people the chance" to change if they are "discontented" with being LGBT.

She also risked angering transgender rights activists by comparing "gay conversion" - which attempts to stop people being LGBT - to their fight to change their legal gender more easily.

Asked about her 2012 remarks, she said: "I also pointed out there was a time when we thought it was quite impossible for men to become women and vice versa.

“And the fact we now think it’s quite impossible for people to switch sexuality doesn’t mean science may not yet produce an answer at some stage.”

(Image: Sky News)

She added: “I don’t know, any more than people once knew whether it was possible for men to become women."

Saying she was often "misrepresented" on the subject, she continued: “I’ve never claimed such science already exists. I've never claimed that.

"I’ve merely said that if you simply rule out the possibility of it, you are denying people who are confused about their sexuality, or discontented with it, the chances that you do give to people who want to change gender.

"Now that's all I've said. I do not imagine that the Brexit Party will be putting forward a policy on gay sex changes in its manifesto.”

She told the interviewer: "You're just completely looking for things that actually do not determine people's votes."

(Image: PA)

Ms Widdecombe's remarks prompted a furious backlash on Twitter .

Former Tory MP Nick Boles, now an independent, tweeted: "If only science could produce an answer to the blight of poisonous bigotry that is Ann Widdecombe."

Labour MP Angela Eagle tweeted: "FGS Back to the future with this pro section 28 relic".

Her Labour colleague Jess Phillips added: "Yeah maybe science will pause trying to stop killer diseases, pandemics, climate crisis and changing face of work and robotics to try and solve something that isn't a problem. Maybe science could try and come up with a cure for bigotry, it would help the world."

Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle said: "Many people who voted Brexit Party will be rightly disgusted at this latest digging down on homophobia.

"It raises serious questions on Ann Widdecombe's fitness for office and the vetting the Brexit Party has done on its candidates."

Kim Sanders, Director of Communications at Stonewall, said: "It is sad that as we celebrate 50 years since LGBT people started a movement to secure equality, views like this are still held by people in public office.

"Suggesting science should find an “answer” to same-sex attraction supports the view that being lesbian, gay, bi or trans is something that needs to be, or can be, cured, which is untrue.

"We know so-called gay cures are often extremely harmful to people.

"Diversity is something that should be embraced and celebrated, which is what we’ll be doing this Pride month."

Lee Williscroft-Ferris, founder of LGBTQ website The Queerness, said: "I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

"Even if there *were* a ‘scientific solution’ to homosexuality, I wouldn’t be interested. Why?

"Because I don’t see it as something to be resolved and I’m perfectly happy with it. So, ya know, bugger off Widdecombe."

Stand-up comedian Susie McCabe said: "Ann Widdecombe on TV this morning saying science may be able to change peoples sex so we are not gay anymore.

"Anne thinks Homosexuality is a disease and an abnormality. That’s why Pride is still important and that’s why the LGBTQ community still have a fight."

Labour member James Matthewson, an aide to Labour Party chairman Ian Lavery, said: "Ann Widdecombe openly saying on #Ridge that science ‘may yet’ come up with a solution to homosexuality.

"Do us a favour Ann, f*** right off."

(Image: Peter Summers)

One Twitter user, Caragh Louise, wrote: "Wow, Widdecombe saying science might yet come up with a way of changing people's sexuality is absolutely disgusting.

"That view has no place in this century, let alone in politics."

Twitter user BN1Stu added: "One day, science will develop a cure for Ann Widdecombe."

Ms Widdecombe, 71 - who will join the Brexit Party in the European Parliament next month after a landslide victory in South West England - has persistently voted against LGBT rights and equality.

She voted against equalising the age of consent at 16, against civil partnerships, and against the repeal of Section 28, the legal clause that prevented schools "promoting" homosexuality.

In 2000 she told MPs she "rejected" the idea "that there is somehow equal validity between the homosexual lifestyle and marriage and family."

(Image: Anthony Devlin)

Last year she was branded "homophobic" by drag star Courtney Act when they both appeared on Celebrity Big Brother .

Her 2012 article blamed the "homosexual lobby" for "turning all its fire" on conversion therapy adding: "The unhappy homosexual should, according to gay activists, be denied any chance whatever to investigate any possibility of seeing if he can be helped to become heterosexual.

"If anybody turns to a properly qualified practitioner for help there must be a presumption that he or she can get it. It is not a state crime to want to change one's sexual leanings. Yet."

A Stonewall spokesperson said in response to Ms Widdecombe's 2012 column earlier this year: "Any form of ‘therapy’ that attempts to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity is unethical and wrong.

"These so-called conversion therapies have been condemned by all major UK health organisations as they try to shame a person into denying a core part of who they are, and this can have a seriously harmful impact on their mental health and wellbeing.

"Same-sex attraction is natural, normal and not something that can or should be ‘cured’."