Home Secretary Amber Rudd tells Piers Morgan that pardoning suffragettes is "tricky"
Rudd said she would “take a look” at the possibility of overturning convictions in response to a campaign on the centenary of women’s suffrage
Home Secretary Amber Rudd has responded to the campaign to pardon suffragettes, saying that to do so would be “tricky”.
Speaking to Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain on Tuesday, the centenary of women’s suffrage in the UK, Rudd said that it would be difficult to give a legal pardon to those in the movement who used arson and violence as methods of protest.
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When Morgan asked her about the campaign calling for suffragettes to have their convictions overturned, the Home Secretary replied: “I think that’s a more tricky one, if I may say. We have done it before of course for Alan Turing [the WW2 code-breaker who was convicted for being gay], I’m certainly going to look at individual cases.”
She added that she would investigate the possibility: “Instinctively, I can see where that campaign is coming from.
“So I will take a look and see if there is a proposal I can take more seriously. As far as pardoning for arson, violence, as you rightly point out, that’s trickier.”
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Rudd was appearing on GMB as she announced £2.5 million for schemes to commemorate suffragettes and increase women’s participation in political and public life.
She presented Morgan – whose views on equality have sometimes been controversial – with a suffragette badge to mark the centenary.
