Edinburgh strip club ban: Good Morning Britain interview sees former Edinburgh councillor Susan Dalgety clash with ex stripper

Former Edinburgh councillor Susan Dalgety has claimed the capital’s strip club ban will help ‘protect women’ as she clashed with a campaigner and ex-stripper in a heated TV debate.

Susan, a journalist who writes a column for the Evening News, told Good Morning Britain presenter Richard Madeley she fully supports the ban because she doesn’t want woman to feel 'forced into stripping off'.

Stripper-turned-author Stacey Clare hit back at the argument and explained she believes the move will force workers underground into a black market which she dubbed as ‘the most dangerous and coercive market there is.’

It comes as a union representing strippers has lodged a motion with the court for a judicial review challenging the ban, voted through by the council in March.

Stripper on stage at a club in the capital

The ‘nil cap’ would limit the number of establishments in the Capital to zero, effectively forcing its four clubs to shut from April next year.

The move has sparked safety fears from industry and community figures as more than 100 Edinburgh workers could be forced out of work, which the union has criticised as “nothing short of reckless endangerment.”

But Susan defended the ban and has branded stripping as ‘living pornography’.

Speaking on Good Morning Britain on Monday she said: “The majority of the sex industry is underground, so I think it's important that we build a society were young women and girls feel that they are not forced into sexual exploitation, which is lap dancing, it's sexual entertainment, it's living pornography, it's for the titillation of men.”

She continued: “This morning thousands of young woman got their exam results in Scotland, I want a country where those young woman aspire to be the best they can be and don't feel that they are forced into that work.”

Susan hopes a ban will help to end demand for sexual entertainment. She said: “We should make it illegal for men to procure sexual entertainment, because no matter which way you cut it sexual entertainment by woman and girls is exploitative, because woman are using their bodies to titillate men for money.”

Stacey called the move 'patronising' and said strippers deserve the same rights as other workers.

She said: “The fact is women do sex work, people do sex work, and the real conversation should be, as far as I am concerned about safety.

“We have to have regulated work places, we need to recognise that our jobs are jobs and we are workers, and we are entitled to workers' rights.

“How are we being protected by saying keep your clothes on? It feels very patronising to sort of say, just cover up and everything will be fine.”

When asked if she felt exploited or forced into the job, Stacey said: ' No I didn't, I think unfortunately the feminist perceptive tends to conflate things and say all of it's the same.'

'Coercion and trafficking, that's violence against woman. But stripping, I have never seen any evidence of trafficking when I worked in the industry, It's just not the same thing.’

'We're not solving any problems by shutting it down, we are driving it underground.'

She added: 'Underground, you create a black market, that is the most dangerous, coercive market there is.'