I was disappointed to learn that Rishi Sunak has reconsidered his opposition to a bill banning conversion therapy. Not because I’m in favour of it, obviously. The baffling thing about Sunak’s change of heart is that conversion therapy, as commonly understood, has been banned in this country for years. As the government’s own briefing on the subject put it in 2021: ‘Our existing criminal law framework means that conversion therapy amounting to offences of physical or sexual violence is already illegal in this country.’

So what is it Sunak wants to outlaw? The bill hasn’t been published, but my fear is it will look a lot like the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act passed in the Australian state of Victoria in 2021. As in the UK, pseudo-scientific ‘treatments’ for homosexuality were already criminal offences in Victoria when the act received royal assent, but the new law went further. For instance, a religious leader who has a conversation with a member of their congregation in which they urge them to resist their homosexual desires can now be jailed for up to ten years if they have caused injury, which includes ‘harm to mental health’.

In addition, the act prohibits any ‘conduct directed towards a person for the purpose of changing or suppressing their… gender identity, or inducing them to do so’. In other words, if a girl who believes she’s a boy is urged by her doctor to see a psychotherapist before having surgery, that doctor would be breaking the law. The only approach a medical professional is allowed to take when faced with a teenager suffering from gender dysphoria – which is still listed in the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders – is to affirm the child’s self-diagnosis and facilitate whatever ‘treatment’ they’ve seen on TikTok.

According to some critics of the Victorian law, it even prohibits parents from trying to dissuade their children from taking puberty blockers. That hasn’t been tested in the courts, but Moira Deeming, a member of the Victorian legislative council who’s been expelled from her own party for speaking out about this issue, thinks it’s likely such a prosecution would succeed if the child self-harmed as a result of this conversation. Keep in mind that puberty blockers, which supposedly give trans-identifying children more time to make up their minds before having hormone treatment, can cause lifelong medical complications, including impaired cognitive development, bone disease and infertility.

To be fair to Sunak, he’s alive to this issue and ministers have reassured MPs in private that the new bill won’t criminalise conversations between medical professionals and patients, or parents and children. They’ve gone further and said the definition of ‘conversion therapy’ will encompass attempts to persuade children attracted to members of the same sex to transition so they effectively become ‘straight’. In this way, they argue, the bill will protect vulnerable adolescents and make it less likely, not more, that they’ll have irreversible medical procedures that they’ll later come to regret.

I think that’s naive. However cleverly the bill is drafted, it’s bound to be changed as it makes its way through parliament, with the powerful LGBT lobby bringing its influence to bear. Ministers say that if the bill ends up resembling the Victorian law the government will just pull it, but that’s easier said than done. Once the PM has declared that a change in the law is necessary to protect gay and lesbian people from harm, it will be politically impossible to kill the bill.

Ministers have one more argument, which is that if this government doesn’t do this, the next one will, and a Conservative conversion therapy ban is bound to be far more sensible than Labour’s. Even putting the defeatism aside, it’s an argument for introducing all sorts of terrible bills. In any event, I’m not convinced Keir Starmer will want to open this can of worms. His own party is bitterly divided on the trans issue. If the current government grasps this nettle, thereby absolving Starmer of the need to do so, they’ll be doing him a favour.

For all of these reasons, Sunak should leave well enough alone. This seems like a hamfisted attempt to appear ‘progressive’ that won’t win over any centrist dads but will end up pushing Conservative voters into the arms of Reform. And the idea that LGBT activists can be persuaded to give ground on the T issue by criminalising conversion of the LGBs is for the birds.