RELITIGATING THE GENDER DEBATE WON'T SAVE HUMZA OR THE SNP
Persisting with the gender reform debate is a sure sign of Humza Yousaf's political weakness and won't save his doomed premiership
Amid collapsing polling numbers, blue forensic tents and questions about luxury motorhomes the Scottish National Party is desperate for something to change the conversation. The new First Minister knows that the missing fundraiser cash scandal is inflicting crippling reputational damage to his premiership before it even begins.
The only problem is, Mr Continuity has latched onto the notion that reviving the divisive gender wars is the tool best placed to get things moving again. It beggars belief that Mr Yousaf could sincerely believe that reminding voters the SNP were up for putting biologically male rapists in female prisons is the right pivot. Yet here we are.
This week Humza Yousaf has announced his intention to continue the fight through the courts to overturn the UK Government’s triggering of Section 35. Presumably the political calculation is twofold, keep the Greens in government and relight the nationalist ire with big bad ‘Westmonster’ talk.
In relation to the former, it’s unavoidable now for Mr Yousaf - he simply has to pander to the Scottish Greens. His decision to push leadership rival Kate Forbes out of cabinet, angering upwards of fifteen SNP MSPs, means his authority is seriously compromised before he even begins to govern. Make no mistake, the Greens insist on continuing with an expensive legal fight over the Gender Recognition Reform Act (GRR); and Mr Yousaf’s ability to govern is increasingly reliant on Green goodwill.
Regarding the latter point, I have little doubt the SNP are hoping that pivoting back to GRR will play well constitutionally. Former Westminster leader Ian Blackford has already been singing the nationalist best hits to journalists about “democratic outrage” and “Scotland’s voice silenced”.
Mr Blackford told BBC Radio Scotland: “What’s at the heart of this matter is the Secretary of State for Scotland believes he has the power, he has the right, to strike down any bill of the Scottish Parliament. That’s a democratic outrage in a modern democracy.”
Clearly the cunning plan is to pick the GRR fight, and hope to circle the nationalist voter wagons around it as a constitutional issue. But, it is naïve - at best - to imagine you can rekindle the GRR debate and not have the whole thing become about self-identification and other divisive issues.
Not least because the legal right for the UK Government to act is blindingly obvious, regardless of Mr Blackford’s pearl clutching rhetoric. Put simply, the Gender Recognition Reform Act cuts across UK legislation in a manner that extends the legal power of the Scottish government in a way never intended by the 1998 Scotland Act. In a sentence: the Holyrood tail cannot wag the Westminster dog.
But the larger reality is that GRR is deeply divisive inside the SNP, polarising in the cultural discourse and tremendously unpopular with voters. According to a Panelbase poll a mere 20 per cent of the Scottish electorate think Mr Yousaf should persist with the GRR fight.
Scottish voters want this legislation to pass on and join the choir invisible. Precious few people will thank Humza Yousaf or the SNP for bringing this issue back to the fore. Our politics is already something of a raging bin-fire amid blue forensic tents on Nicola Sturgeon’s lawn, fraud squad coppers raiding SNP HQ and the slow drip, drip, drip of fresh revelations. We need a return to the politics of ‘terf vs woke’ about as much as a I need a bullet in my brain.
As people are feeling the pinch in the pockets as inflationary pressures worsen the cost of living crisis, the new cabinet has nothing to say. That our new First Minister is in need of a reset less than two weeks into the top job is pitiable enough, but all the self-inflicted errors has left him unable to exercise authority is worse still for the country.
Mr Yousaf’s decision to push Ms Forbes out of the (political) tent has left him dependent on Greens who insist on GRA and who also oppose economic growth. No, really, they do. This is likely why the First Minister is reduced to speaking in vacuous and meaningless platitudes about the ‘wellbeing economy’ while the economic skies grow ever darker. Say what you like about Kate Forbes social attitudes (and I have), but at least she was interested in focusing on growing the economy, even if that meant parting company with Patrick, Lorna and Ross.
The burning motorhome wreckage that is SNP right now is not just going to prove bad for the nationalists, but also for the country. We have a new First Minister who has no authority as he starts the job, cannot talk about economic growth because Ross Greer won’t let him and is reduced to restarting a national debate about whether men can become women. Meanwhile child poverty is up, food insecurity is growing and people struggle to pay the bills despite juggling two jobs.
The trans debate may echo around twitter everyday, but its an issue for culture warriors and legal pedants to prioritise. Litigating the differences between legal sex and biological sex is not the issue keeping voters awake at night and perpetuating with this will only further enrage the biological women of Scotland.
There is simply no consensus even within the SNP electoral base concerning the GRR issue. Plenty of nationalists - not just ‘yoons’ - have an issue with the proposal a 16 year old can change their legal sex by self-declaration; no medical personnel required. And ultimately that is the big flaw in the cunning plan to bring back the GRR wars, it cuts across the constitutional divide. Far from reinforcing the politics of ‘yes’ versus ‘no’, issues like whether or not to keep a requirement for Gender Recognition Certificate’s (GRC) plays about as well with 2014 yes voters as it does with the no crowd.
Just cast your mind back to what we all witnessed in the dying days of the Sturgeon era. Rolling coverage about whether 16 year olds should need a GRC, huge rows about whether a biologically male rapist should be placed in an all-women prison, the spectacle of Nicola Sturgeon rendered unable to utter the pronoun ‘he’ or ‘she’. Does Humza Yousaf seriously want us all to relive that?
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