"Well if my wife's in there I'm sparking him out."
A Lamborghini-driving lawyer who is battling to become Birmingham’s new MP has caused controversy over a resurfaced comment where he joked about “sparking out” men who enter female toilets during an exchange over gay and transgender rights.
Akhmed Yakoob also explained how he pulled his children out of secular state schools to avoid them being exposed to positive LGBT messages.
Mr Yakoob, a criminal defence lawyer, is standing as an Independent in the Birmingham Ladywood constituency and has close links to George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain.
In a video interview broadcast in September 2023, Mr Yakoob was introduced as “the most famous solicitor in the world right now’ by Mikey Melin, the host of the YouTube channel The Blue Tick Show.
In the interview, Mr Yakoob said:
“What if a man goes into the ladies’ bathroom and says, ‘I’m not a man, I’m a woman’.
“Well if my wife’s in there I’m sparking him out. And there ain’t no defence for that offence.”
Mr Melin added: “I would accept the time, f*** it, put me inside.”
Mr Yakoob has now broken his silence on the remark, insisting it was not aimed at transgender women.
He claimed: “I was saying what if a big grown man who can clearly be seen is a man. That’s the fear isn’t it?
“Men who are not trans, who are normal men, will start taking advantage. It will give normal men who are predators the idea that they could get away with it.”
Liberal Democrat candidate Lee Dargue said it would be dreadful for the city and the LGBT community if the next MP for the area held such views.
Mr Yakoob hopes to unseat Labour’s shadow justice minister Shabana Mahmood and has built up a following among disaffected Muslims and people who support his pro-Palestine campaign messages.
Recent polling shows him making inroads into Labour’s significant majority of 28,582.
During the interview, Mr Yakoob also claimed that he and any Muslim cannot “promote” positive LGBT issues because doing so is prohibited in their faith.
However, this claim was condemned by some faith leaders, academics and gay Muslims.
He also stated that he “hates” LGBT equality messages being shared in schools, so much so that his own children were moved out of secular state schools to faith secondary schools.
Speaking to Mr Melin, Mr Yakoob said: ‘I’ve got no issue with this LGBTQ. I don’t promote it. I can’t promote it.
“You [Mr Melin] can’t promote it, we can’t promote it because we are Muslim.
“We can’t promote it because it’s been told, we’ve been told, God has sent down a message… people should be able to do what they like, yeah, but not try to enforce their views and opinions on other people’s kids.
“I don’t like this being taught in schools – I hate it.
“I have now pulled my kids out of school. Now they are in Islamic schools because I can’t have that around me.
“Regardless of what religion you are, a young girl or a young boy should not be taught about different genders that you can change your gender.
“If we say something bad about these (LGBTQ) guys, people go mad, but people are burning the Holy Quran – have you heard anyone say anything about that, condemn that? Nobody cares about that.
“That’s our religious book […] why are people just ignoring that?
“And somebody says bad about LGBTQ and the whole world goes mad – they are so annoyed about it and get frustrated so easily.”
The aspiring MP later clarified that his children had attended state primary schools but he moved them to faith schools when they went into the secondary sector, one attending an Islamic school and the other at a Catholic school.
Akhmed Yakoob was previously embroiled in controversy when he shared a video that falsely accused a teacher of racism.
Watch the Full Interview
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