Nicola Sturgeon’s plan to use a steamroller to dramatically change gender equality reform legislation and push the measure through all parliamentary stages before Christmas is the latest move in what can only be described as mania.
In a frantic rush to enable the bill to receive royal assent as soon as possible, the First Minister forced the Scottish Parliament into a late-night sitting (8pm at Holyrood is considered the equivalent of a full evening in the House of Commons) to approved a controversial measure allowing people, including teenagers, to change their gender through a simple act of self-declaration.
The bill has already seen the SNP’s biggest rebellion yet with nine MSPs, including one minister, refusing to support it. Now the First Minister has defied demands from opposition parties to delay detailed consideration of the bill until the new year. Instead, it plans to go through dozens of fixes on Dec. 20 before passing its final stages the next day.
She will also oppose opposition demands to water down controversial provisions of the bill – for example, they would like to see the age at which young people can choose to self-declare as the opposite sex be raised from 16 to 18. Politicians are also expected to introduce amendments to protect single-sex spaces that are currently only available to women. They will also be hoping to fence off women’s sports, trying to prevent unfair competition.
Ms Sturgeon knows that the faster she gets the bill through parliament, the better chance she has of weathering the storm of criticism against its provisions. It attracted more opposition than any other SNP measure, with author J. K Rowling accused Sturgeon of being a “destroyer of women’s rights”.
In a newspaper article, Ms Rowling said the First Minister’s changes could be to blame for incidents of “voyeurism, sexual harassment, assault or rape” and she sent a case of champagne to a feminist protester who mocked Sturgeon at a charity event attended by told not to discuss “the definition of a woman”.
But Sturgeon’s speed is also seen as a ploy to defuse what could prove to be the most significant domestic political opposition to the bill – from one of her senior ministers. Chancellor of the Exchequer Kate Forbes is widely regarded as the SNP government’s most talented cabinet member and almost preferable, according to many nationalists, as Sturgeon’s successor.
Cambridge-educated Forbes is also a devout Christian and is known to be staunchly opposed to the Gender Equality Bill. But she is currently on maternity leave and won’t be back at Holyrood for several months, prompting opposition parties to claim that Sturgeon is rushing the vote so Forbes can’t vote against him. If she ever does, she will be sacked as Sturgeon refused to allow the SNP a free vote – sparking a fresh wave of criticism.
In another example of Sturgeon’s insistence that she will not tolerate easing of the measure, she is expected to reject calls from Cammy Badenoch, the UK equality secretary, that she should scrap the plans because they could lead to legal chaos throughout the Union, with different criteria applicable on both sides of the border. This would raise questions such as: can biological males who self-identified as the opposite sex in Scotland gain access to women-only spaces in England?
It’s pretty clear from her attitude that the First Minister wants to demonstrate that she’s still in charge after a few weeks of bad headlines, including the High Court rejection of her indyref2 plan and her Westminster party collapsing. But this “taste of hard government,” as she would see it, united the opposition to her leadership like almost nothing else. And all this because of a completely wrong obsession.
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