Labour politician Andrew Adonis speaks about coming out as gay for the first time

56-year-old separated from his wife in 2015

Labour politician Lord Andrew Adonis has spoken about his decision to come out as gay for the first time.

The 56-year-old, who served in a number of ministerial roles under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, has decided to talk about his sexuality because he feels as though “you should be completely honest and open in public about who you are”.

In 2015, Lord Adonis separated from his wife, Kathryn Davis, with whom he shares two children, after 21 years of marriage.

While the labour peer and his partner did not publicly discuss the reasons behind their split at the time, Lord Adonis has now revealed that he “probably knew” he was gay when the pair first met.

“I tried to suppress it, as did so many of my contemporaries,” Lord Adonis told the i newspaper.

“It was a big thing. Society has changed so much in the last 20 years. It’s a total revolution and I think it’s one for the better.”

Lord Adonis admitted that coming out as gay to his wife and children had been “very difficult”.

“It was a few years ago I came to terms with who I was,” he said.

“Lots of my contemporaries have had to come to terms with who they are and realise all those deeply held assumptions we had when we were teenagers and in our 20s no longer apply.”

Lord Adonis added that, “in the scale of things I had to deal with in my life, it was just one of them”.

The politician, who has a life peerage in the House of Lords, has long been a supporter of the LGBT+ community.

In 2018, Lord Adonis supported an amendment to introduce same-sex marriage and abortion rights to Northern Ireland.

In an open letter to then-prime minister Theresa May, which he shared on Twitter, Lord Adonis wrote: “There is also growing anger and frustration that you have not made any adequate provision for parliament to safeguard basic rights in Northern Ireland in the absence of the Assembly.

"It is creating a deep sense of injustice, and lack of respect for rights in Northern Ireland.”

The politician joins a number of parliamentary figures who have come out as gay, lesbian or bisexual over the years, including Maureen Colquhoun, who represented Labour in Northampton in the 1970s and Lord Chris Smith.