Carrie Johnson has urged Conservatives to fight for the rights of transgender people, throwing her support behind a cause that has begun to increasingly divide the party. In her sole public appearance at Tory conference, the prime minister’s wife, who works as an environmental campaigner, said it was a “fact of life” that LGBT+ people experienced hate crimes due to their gender identity and sexuality. She said there was “still a long way to go” to tackle the significant discrimination and stigma they faced. The chair of the LGBT+ Conservatives group, Elena Bunbury, hit out at delegates to the conference whom she claimed had “brought into question” trans rights.