Mel B calls on Labor Party’s Sir Keir Starmer to tackle domestic abuse

Mel B has urged Sir Keir Starmer to make fighting domestic violence one of his ‘national missions’ if he becomes prime minister.

The Labor leader said he would make the issue a priority after being questioned by Spice Girl, a survivor of domestic abuse who is campaigning for change.

Sir Keir said a “powerful point” in his pledge to “make Britain’s streets safe” is tackling violence against women and girls.

He unveiled five missions last week to improve the nation, including ensuring sustained high growth and building a future-fit NHS.

But Mel B, sitting next to Sir Keir at a Woman’s Aid panel, demanded that he add a sixth mission: tackling domestic violence.

“If you’re going to talk about your top five things, you have to add another one that is specifically domestic abuse,” he said.

As the audience laughed at her sustained questioning, she said: “You may laugh, but I’m being very serious.”

“It has to be an independent thing where we’re educated on from the ground up, from the inside out.”

Sir Keir said he would “absolutely make it a priority” if he is prime minister, but did not commit to a sixth national mission.

He said an “end-to-end change” is needed and that “tinkering is not going to make a difference.”

Mel B, patron of the Women’s Aid charity, described herself as a “big fan” of Sir Keir and expressed confidence that he would win the next general election.

But she warned him: ‘Keir, I am forcing everything on you. I’ll go after you, I will.

“To every survivor and the voice of all who cannot be heard, I am your voice, so be careful. Because I really like you.

It comes after Mel opened up about ‘facing her fears’ after being in a ‘horrible and abusive’ marriage for 10 years.

The pop star said she was looking for a fresh start after calling it quits and filing for divorce from ex-husband Stephen Belafonte in 2017.

During the season premiere of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test last month, Mel said she had been living in fear and hoped the show’s endurance course would help her reclaim her own power.

Stephen has always vehemently denied being abusive during the marriage.

During a confessional, Mel said: “I ended up in a very horrible 10 year abusive relationship. I felt useless, you feel powerless. I face huge fears.

Explaining his hopes for the series, he continued, “I’m just going to bring out that inner person that I hope isn’t dead and gone.”

Early last year, Mel B candidly detailed that she was living with PTSD, five years after her marriage to Stephen ended.

The singer split from Stephen, 47, in 2017 and claimed he had emotionally and physically abused her during their 10-year marriage, which he denies.

Mel said that although some of the memories are so painful that her mind has blocked them out, she still suffers from terrible memories that wake her up in the night, drenching her in “shame, sweat and fear.”

She said Sun: ‘Almost five years later, I still wake up in the early hours with terrifying snippets of sounds and images flitting through my brain, the things I’ve tried to block out floating to the surface, things that can still make me drenched in shame, sweat and the fear.’

The Loose Women star opened up about how she turned to drugs during her marriage “to block out the torment and guilt.”

“I had been through so much and had sunk so low that my self-esteem was zero, I was cut off from my family, I had no one to trust, so I turned to drink and drugs to ease my pain,” she said.

“I was completely out of it when I was recorded having sex, one of the most humiliating things I endured in my abusive relationship.”

Mel said that during the marriage she continued to “pretend everything was fine” in the hope that, if she pretended, they would “enjoy a normal, loving relationship.”

The Spice Girl star said she finds it “very disturbing” that she “doesn’t have a clear recollection” of an incident her daughter described to her ghostwriter, because her post-traumatic stress disorder blocked out the trauma.

Mel and Stephen secretly got married in 2007 and separated in 2017.

They share a daughter, Madison Brown Belafonte, 11, and Mel has two children from previous relationships: Phoenix Chi Gulzar, 24, whom she shares with ex-husband Jimmy Gulzar and Angel Iris Murphy Brown, 15, whom she shares with Eddie Murphy. .

The mother of three claimed she suffered financial abuse during her marriage to Stephen, as she did not have access to her own money.

Mel admitted that she is famous for being “confident and outspoken like Scary Spice” and despite feeling “at home” on stage, she believed that many had seen her as the last person to feel “totally trapped and alone” in her marriage.

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