How Scotland Lost Its Way: Gender Ideology, Class Divides, and the Collapse of Political Integrity
The self-ID fiasco is not just bad policy—it’s a symptom of a deeper crisis in Scottish politics.
John Swinney warmly applauded Nicola Sturgeon over two years ago when the SNP introduced its controversial self-ID law. By then, I had already concluded that Holyrood’s consensus on trans rights reflected policy capture by special interest groups, rather than a genuine effort to create balanced legislation. The goal should have been to humanise gender-transition processes while safeguarding women’s sex-based rights, but this was never the focus.
Through interviews with groups like For Women Scotland, analysis of civil service documents, and academic research, it became clear that the Scottish Government’s self-ID legislation lacked robust processes to inspire confidence across the GRA debate. Worse, it was evident that the push for self-ID by SNP, Labour, Green, and Liberal Democrat politicians wasn’t just incompetent—it actively prioritised special interests over the public good. The goal was never balance; it was to favour one group over another to reach a pre-determined outcome.
This approach—railroading contentious reforms while ignoring expert evidence and stakeholder concerns—is deeply corrosive. It fails all parties involved, especially when dealing with emotive clashes of rights in a liberal democracy. History will judge this failure harshly.
Gender recognition, class division, policy capture and governance disconnect
When Lysander, in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is told by Theseus to stand, he responds in confusion: “My lord, I shall reply amazedly, half sleep, half waking. But as yet, I swear, I cannot truly say how I came here.” For many Scots, his words capture the surreal sense of disorientation felt as they reflect on how Scotland arrived at its current state. Under Holyrood’s aegis, it feels as though we’ve woken from a dream, unsure of the path that led us here. Lysander’s bewilderment mirrors our own political and cultural confusion—a nation adrift, questioning how it lost its way
Scottish politics is in a state of flux following on from the contentious debate around gender identity theory and the Gender Recognition Reform Bill of 2022. It exposed deep fissures in the political landscape. The Bill, which aimed to simplify the process for individuals to change their legal gender, was hailed by its proponents as a progressive step toward equality. However, it sparked fierce opposition from women’s rights groups, legal experts, and much of the public, who raised concerns about its implications for single-sex spaces and the integrity of sex-based protections. The Scottish Government’s insistence on pushing the Bill through Holyrood, despite these concerns, highlighted a growing disconnect between political leaders and the electorate. This disconnect is emblematic of a broader trend in Scottish politics, where ideological agendas often overshadow practical governance and the material needs of ordinary citizens.
At the heart of this debate lies a stark class divide. Gender identity theory, once a radical critique of rigid gender norms, has been co-opted by middle-class activists as a form of performative radicalism. This shift has prioritized abstract identity politics over the material concerns—such as poverty, housing, and healthcare—that disproportionately affect the working class. The push for gender self-ID laws, framed as a human rights issue, has diverted attention and resources away from these pressing struggles. Meanwhile, policy capture by special interest groups has further alienated working-class communities, who feel their voices are ignored in favour of elite-driven agendas. This dynamic is not just a failure of representation; it is a betrayal of the left’s traditional commitment to economic and social justice.
The disconnect between Scotland’s political leaders and the realities of the working class is compounded by a troubling lack of understanding among those in power. For example, First Minister John Swinney’s confusion over whether the 2010 Equality Act or the 1992 workplace regulations governed women’s rights to single-sex spaces underscored a broader incompetence in policymaking. This failure to grasp the laws they advocate reflects a terminal decline in effective governance, where ideology trumps expertise and practical considerations. The result is a political system that serves neither the working class nor the broader public interest, but instead caters to the whims of a middle-class elite obsessed with symbolic victories. This trajectory, if unchecked, risks eroding trust in Scottish institutions and deepening the crisis of representation.
1. Gender Identity Theory as Middle-Class Fake Radicalism
Gender identity theory, once a radical critique of rigid gender roles, has been co-opted by middle-class activists as performative radicalism—prioritizing symbolic gestures over material concerns. Instead of tackling structural inequalities like wage stagnation, housing insecurity, and healthcare access, the discourse often revolves around subjective self-identification and language policing. This allows middle-class activists to signal progressive credentials without engaging in the hard work of economic reform. In Scotland, for example, the Gender Recognition Reform Bill was framed as a human rights issue, while working-class struggles against poverty and austerity received far less attention. This focus on identity over material reality reflects a trend where middle-class activism values ideological purity over substantive change.
Scottish politics illustrates this detachment from working-class realities. The SNP poured significant political capital into gender self-ID legislation, despite public opposition and concerns about single-sex spaces. Meanwhile, pressing issues like the cost-of-living crisis, housing shortages, and NHS failures garnered far less attention from the same progressive circles. This disconnect reveals how gender identity theory serves as a moral litmus test for the middle class—a way to appear radical without challenging capitalism or economic inequality. By focusing on personal identity rather than collective economic struggle, this activism reinforces class divisions, offering a “radicalism” that’s safe for those insulated from neoliberalism’s harshest impacts.
Moreover, gender identity theory has become a way to signal social class. With over 50 per cent of school leavers now pursuing degrees, fluency in “progressive” language—such as pronoun debates and gender-neutral terminology—has become a marker of bourgeois middle-class status. It distinguishes the “in crowd” from those perceived as less educated or culturally aware, often the working class. This performative progressivism is less about advancing equality and more about asserting social distinction, further entrenching class divides under the guise of inclusivity.
2. Middle Class Arrogance at Working Class Expense
The elevation of gender identity theory within progressive politics is a stark example of middle-class arrogance, where educated activists dictate priorities to working-class communities without regard for their material concerns. The assumption that working-class people should place gender identity issues on par with—or even above—their struggles with low wages, unaffordable housing, and crumbling public services is not only condescending but actively alienating. While middle-class professionals debate pronoun policies in HR departments and university lecture halls, working-class families are contending with food bank reliance and insecure employment. This disconnect creates resentment, as working-class voters see a political class more invested in symbolic gestures than in tackling the systemic inequalities that shape their daily lives.
This misalignment has concrete political consequences, pushing many working-class voters away from the progressive parties that once championed their cause. For example, in Scotland, the SNP’s relentless focus on gender self-identification laws was met with fierce opposition from working-class women concerned about the erosion of single-sex spaces. Similarly, polling consistently shows that working-class voters prioritize economic stability over identity politics, yet political elites dismiss these concerns as reactionary or uninformed. This dynamic fractures the left, as middle-class activists impose ideological purity tests that exclude working-class perspectives. Instead of fostering solidarity, this arrogance deepens class divisions, leaving many disillusioned with parties and movements that claim to represent them but seem more preoccupied with abstract identity debates than real-world struggles. If progressive politics continues to centre middle-class moral posturing over working-class needs, it will only accelerate its own irrelevance.
3. Trades Unions, ‘Thought Crimes’, and Fear of Dissent
Once the backbone of working-class resistance, many of Britain’s leading trade unions have abandoned their traditional focus on wages, job security, and workers’ rights in favour of bourgeois identity politics. Fearful of internal dissent and external backlash, union leadership increasingly prioritizes gender identity debates over the material struggles of their members. Rather than pushing back against austerity, exploitative labour practices, or the erosion of collective bargaining rights, unions like Unite and the TUC have devoted significant resources to embedding gender identity policies within workplaces, often to the frustration of their working-class base. This shift represents a profound betrayal of the labour movement’s foundational mission, turning it into an instrument of middle-class cultural preoccupations rather than working-class empowerment.
The consequences of this retreat are clear. The UK’s largest union, Unison, held its national women’s conference in Edinburgh this week, where the first motion debated called for the Labour government to introduce self-ID—the process allowing individuals to change their legal sex by filling in a form. The motion, which declared that "trans women are women," also condemned women who campaign for female-only spaces as "reactionary." By prioritizing motions like this over the worsening cost-of-living crisis, wage stagnation, and deteriorating workplace conditions, union leadership risks alienating rank-and-file members who feel their concerns are being side-lined. This growing disconnect makes it easier for employers and right-wing forces to exploit divisions within the labour movement. If unions continue down this path, they risk becoming irrelevant, abandoned by the very workers they were created to protect.
4. Scottish Labour’s Focus Grouped Conversion
Scottish Labour’s recent pivot to opposing the Gender Recognition Reform Bill of 2022 is not a demonstration of principle, but a clear case of political expediency. For years, the party was in favour of self-ID, dismissing concerns from women’s rights campaigners, trade unionists, and working-class voters as reactionary or even bigoted. Yet, as public opinion shifted and the rise of Reform UK threatened Labour’s electoral base, Anas Sarwar suddenly found himself questioning legislation he once supported without hesitation. His claim that he “would not have voted for the Bill if he had known then what he knows now” rings hollow—Labour’s leadership knew exactly what they were supporting. I know, because myself and others wrote column inches, and a whole women’s movement lobbied and campaigned on their Holyrood doorstep. They had been repeatedly briefed on the risks. What has changed is not their understanding, but their electoral calculations.
This opportunism is emblematic of a broader failure within Scottish Labour: a party that has abandoned its working-class roots in favour of middle-class intellectual fashions. Faux-progressive identity politics intellectual cul-de-sacs predominate with gender identity theory, at its core. It is a bourgeois ideological project—one that prioritizes elite academic discourse over the material concerns of wages, housing, and public services. Instead of fighting for the working class, Scottish Labour spent years defending self-ID as a progressive cause, partly oblivious to how deeply unpopular and disconnected it was from the realities of working people until the focus groups and shifting polling data shook them.
Now, rather than acknowledging their misjudgement, they are simply adjusting their rhetoric in response, hoping voters - and Scottish Labour feminist campaigners such as Johann Lamont - will forget the party’s previous stance. This blatant insincerity only deepens public cynicism toward political institutions and Labour in particular. If a major party can reverse itself so transparently without apology or accountability, why should the electorate trust anything it says? In attempting to save itself from electoral collapse, Scottish Labour has instead reinforced the idea that politics is little more than an exercise in elite-managed deception.
5. SNP’s Incompetence and Policy Capture
The SNP government’s handling of gender identity laws has been marked by confusion, incompetence, and an alarming detachment from legal realities. Nowhere was this clearer than in John Swinney’s recent misinterpretation of legislation, which exposed the government’s failure to grasp the very laws they claim to uphold. When questioned about workplace regulations on single-sex spaces, Swinney cited Scottish Government guidance based on the 2010 Equality Act, insisting that “these kinds of decisions must be made on a case-by-case basis” and that “managers must balance the needs of the trans person to use this facility against the needs of other members of staff.” Yet, as legal experts swiftly pointed out, this guidance is incorrect. Susan Dalgety in The Scotsman pointed to Scott Wortley, a law lecturer at Edinburgh University, publicly correcting Swinney, noting that the relevant legislation is actually the 1992 Workplace Regulations, which clearly allow for single-sex facilities without the need for case-by-case considerations. That a sitting First Minister could so confidently assert a misreading of the law—likely based to my mind on faulty civil service advice—should be a national scandal. But policy capture by special interest groups infects more than the thinking and instincts of political leaders in the corridors of power.
This episode is not an isolated blunder but a direct consequence of the SNP’s addiction to legislating on gender self-ID, a pattern I previously explored in Think Scotland (Railroaded: Gender Recognition Reform and Policy Capture). As I argued there, Scottish policymaking has been hijacked by activist-driven narratives, leading to a government that prioritizes ideological compliance over competent governance. The persistence with which the SNP pursues gender reforms—despite clear legal contradictions, public opposition, and repeated judicial challenges—demonstrates how deeply policy capture has infected Scotland’s institutions. Instead of engaging with legal realities or addressing working-class concerns, the SNP operates within an activist echo chamber, creating policies that serve elite ideological interests rather than the public good. This model of governance, in which civil servants and ministers are more accountable to pressure groups than to voters, is unsustainable. If Scotland’s leadership continues to prioritize activist appeasement over legal competence and sound policymaking, its institutions will only sink further into dysfunction.
6. The Terminal Endpoint of Scottish Politics.
Our politics has reached a breaking point. The failures of governance, from policy capture to middle-class arrogance and institutional incompetence, have created a system that is fundamentally detached from the concerns of ordinary people. The SNP’s relentless focus on gender self-ID, despite legal contradictions and widespread public opposition, epitomizes a government beholden to activist networks rather than the electorate. Meanwhile, Scottish Labour’s opportunistic U-turn on gender identity reveals a party that no longer leads with conviction but reacts to polling data. Across the political spectrum, the priorities of working-class communities—wages, housing, healthcare, and economic security—have been side-lined in favour of ideological battles that resonate primarily with the professional-managerial class. The result is a political culture that is increasingly unrepresentative, alienating, and dysfunctional.
This crisis has profound implications for Scottish civil society. A government that prioritizes activist appeasement over competent governance is not merely inefficient—it is actively eroding public trust in democratic institutions. When voters see their concerns dismissed, their values ridiculed, and their material struggles ignored, they disengage or turn to political alternatives that promise disruption. The worrying rise of Reform UK in Scotland is a symptom of this alienation, a warning that discontent will not be indefinitely contained within the boundaries of our centrist traditional party politics. If Scotland is to avoid further political fragmentation and evade a far—right populism, there must be a fundamental shift: away from elite ideological obsessions and back to the material issues that shape people’s lives.
Rebuilding trust with working-class communities requires more than rhetorical adjustments—it demands a political realignment that places their needs at the centre of governance. Without this, Scottish politics will remain in terminal decline, a system that exists to serve itself rather than the people it was meant to represent. And the winners will be the forces of populism, and an endless cycle of culture-wars which distract from the real needs.
As I argued in The Swamp Exists, But Populists Won’t Drain It, acknowledging that government institutions are failing is not a concession to populism—it is the first step toward meaningful reform. Figures like Farage and Trump are correct in diagnosing a bloated, ineffective bureaucracy, but their solutions are performative rather than substantive. The real challenge lies in rebuilding faith in governance, and that requires a modernizing, bold, and decentralizing Scottish Labour movement willing to lead a project of national renewal. Scottish politics cannot assume that voters still see government as an inherent force for good; faith in the state’s ability to deliver has collapsed. Put directly, it’s no longer a safe a-priori assumption anymore that voters view government - or Labour as a party- as forces inherently bent toward the common good. If Scottish Labour is to offer a credible alternative, it must distance itself from the elite ideological obsessions that have captured policy-making and instead focus on the material concerns that shape people’s daily lives. The choice is clear: continue the status quo of managerial inertia, or embrace a radical reform agenda that restores competence, accountability, and trust in government.
Conclusion
Scottish politics stands at a crossroads. The fixation on gender identity theory has exposed a deeper crisis: a political class that prioritizes ideological purity over the material concerns of the working class. Middle-class activists and policymakers have hijacked the political agenda, diverting attention from poverty, housing, and economic security in favor of symbolic battles that resonate within elite circles but alienate ordinary voters. Trade unions, once champions of the working class, have followed suit, sidelining workplace struggles in favor of identity politics. Meanwhile, political leaders—from the SNP to Scottish Labour—have either capitulated to or cynically exploited these debates, failing to provide the competent governance Scotland desperately needs.
This is not just a failure of policy; it is a failure of representation. The dominance of activist-driven agendas and the erosion of trust in government have created a vacuum, one that populists are eager to fill. The question is no longer whether Scottish politics needs reform, but whether it can be reformed at all. If parties like Scottish Labour wish to remain relevant, they must break free from elite ideological capture and return to the foundational mission of politics: serving the people. Can they rise to the challenge, or will Scotland continue its drift into dysfunction and disenchantment?
Dean M Thomson is currently a lecturer with Beijing Normal - Hong Kong Baptist University, United International College (UIC).
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