Home Office Minister Diana Johnson is to raise concerns with the Metropolitan Police after a trans right activist was pictured with a sign suggesting their political opponents should be dead, following last week’s Supreme Court ruling. Jo Grady, General Secretary of the University and College Union, posted a photo of the sign at a protest outside London. Ms Grady said it showed a protest “with just 24 hours notice” following the judges’ decision.

Dame Diana, Minister for Police, said officers had told her that the photo was in fact from an older event - but was contradicted by Times Radio presenter Kate McCann. The Minister told Times Radio: “I spoke with the Metropolitan Police yesterday about this very point and a number of the pictures which I saw on social media of some of the issues around threats to individuals or references to Terfs and all of that and threats of violence.

"I was assured that those pictures came not from the protests on Saturday but from other protests that had taken place in the past. So that reassured me yesterday that that work had been done.”

However she was challenged by presenter Kate McCann, who said: “Can that be right though? Because one of those pictures was posted by a union boss...the one that said ‘the only good Terf is a dead Terf’, I think was the poster that was part of that, and those photos she said were from the rally that she had attended that day?”

Dame Diana promised: “If that’s the case I will go back and raise that with the Metropolitan Police but I asked specifically yesterday when I met with them about the posts that were on social media. This has happened in the past as well when we’ve had protests around the Gaza situation.”

Kate McCann continued: “I’ve no doubt that has happened but in this particular case, given the person who posted it...”

Dame Diana said: “Well I will look at that. I will look at that because that concerns me and obviously threats like that that are made are really concerning and may well constitute offences. So I will certainly look at what you’ve raised with me.”

The sign referred to “TERFs”, a phrase used by some trans rights activists to refer to women who believe transgender women should be barred from some women-only spaces. It said “The only good TERF is a _ _ _ _ TERF”, The four blank spaces indicating where letters were missing was next to an image of a hangman’s noose, suggesting the full text should read: “The only good TERF is a dead TERF”.

Meanwhile Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has accused Labour ministers of lying about support for female-only spaces after Sir Keir Starmer’s U-turn on his views about transgender women.

Ahead of her weekly clash with Sir Keir at Prime Minister’s Questions, Mrs Badenoch hit out at equalities minister Bridget Phillipson for previously saying that transgender women could use female toilets.

The Tory leader said: “Yesterday, the Education Secretary claimed she’d always backed single-sex spaces for women. She lied.

“This is footage from last year where she says the exact opposite: that men should use women’s spaces if they have a certificate.”

She posted a link to a Times Radio interview from 2024 in which Ms Phillipson suggested that transgender women who had gone through the formal gender recognition process could use ladies’ toilets.

Sir Keir faced criticism after welcoming the “real clarity” offered by the Supreme Court’s judgment, which he said made clear that “a woman is an adult female”.

It marked a shift from his previous views that “trans women are women”.

Author and women’s rights campaigner JK Rowling said: “Imagine being such a coward you can only muster the courage to tell the truth once the Supreme Court has ruled on what the truth is.”

The Supreme Court confirmed the terms “woman” and “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act “refer to a biological woman and biological sex”.

This means transgender women with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) can be excluded from single-sex spaces if “proportionate”.

Independent MP Rosie Duffield, who quit Labour last year, said Sir Keir’s U-turn on whether a transgender woman is a woman showed he was a “manager rather than a leader”.