'Nonsense!' Claire Coutinho furiously shuts down Lib Dem attack on 'self-indulgent' plan to remove 'identity politics'

Appearing on GB News Breakfast, Ms Cooper said of Mrs Badenoch's plan: "I think she's fundamentally misunderstood what the public sector duty is about. It's not about preferential treatment at all, it's making sure there is equality of opportunity.

"I think this is real kind of dog whistle stuff and I think it's pretty desperate from a really sad Conservative party."

Reacting to Ms Cooper's criticism, Ms Coutinho hit back at the Lib Dems leader and stressed that the British public is being "put at real harm" because of identity politics.

She told GB News: "I'm sorry, I think that's nonsense and when Kemi Badenoch was doing this in 2020 and fighting against Black Lives Matter, we got this same criticism, that this is self indulgent.

"But you are seeing case after case now where people are dying - in the case of the Southport killer, the Nottingham killer, Sara Sharif, the grooming gang scandal, the Manchester bomber, I could go on and on - there is case after case where the public is being put at real harm."

The Tory MP added: "People are dying because our public services are afraid of being called racist, and the reason that's happening is this equality duty which is pushing this ideology into public services, telling them that they should treat ethnic minorities differently.

"That is not self indulgent, that is preventing the public from being put at risk of serious harm."

Pressed by host Ellie Costello on how the plan proposed by the Tories is going to work, Ms Coutinho argued that "radical activists infiltrating our public services" must be stopped.

She told GB News: "What we're setting out today is that we have to kick out identity politics from our public services.

"If you're the NHS, you should be treating people, not putting out promotional material for cousin marriage.

"If you're the police, you should be stopping crime, not obsessing about how you should treat ethnic minorities differently.

"If you're the prison service, you should be able to isolate Islamic terrorists, but actually we've seen a case where prisons have been stopped from doing that, even though there's a risk of radicalising other prisoners because of this equality duty."

The Tory frontbencher explained: "And that's why what we're setting out today is that we have to get rid of the equality duty.

"We have to stop having radical activists infiltrating our public services and actually pushing ideology, which is odds with the majority of what the the public thinks. And actually it's making it harder for those public services to do their jobs well."

Quizzed on another Tory policy, Ms Coutinho was pressed on the party's call for a complete social media ban for under-16s and whether they are "happy to go head to head with with President Trump over this", who opposes the move.

She responded: "Yes we are. Look, the priority is protecting British children and we're not going to make any apologies for that.

"I agree with complete free speech for adults, but I don't agree with complete freedom for children.

"So when you look at smoking, drinking, we add extra protections for children, and actually the harms of social media, from everything I've seen, whether it's mental health, whether it's them watching knife crime videos, whether it's watching self harm videos, children as young as three or four are being given smartphones and access to social media.

"I think there is real world damage that's being done to childhood, and that's got to be the priority. Other countries can say whatever they want about it, but our priority is protecting British children."

Pushing back on Ms Coutinho, Mark then stressed: "This ban sounds good, but at the end of the day, if we look at the Australian model, children are getting round it. Six in 10 children are still accessing this content."

Ms Coutinho concluded: "It doesn't stop absolutely everybody, but it does stop a lot of people and it sends a very clear message about what we think is harmful and not for children."