When Nicola Sturgeon announced her resignation on February 15th all of Scotland was taken by surprise. Many of us had been hoping she would go however, even we were caught out when she did actually step down.
After her loquacious resignation speech we were none the wiser to the real reasons for her sudden departure. Social media is, if nothing, a haven for conspiracy theorists. Within minutes of her stepping down Twitter and Facebook were buzzing with theories on her haste to resign.
I wrote a blog suggesting that in the fullness of time the truth would emerge. We are not there yet and the conspiracy mob are still going at it hammer and tongs. What is not in doubt is this, whatever other reasons she had to finally vacate Bute House, her GRRB insanity was a determining factor.
When the whole scandal of double rapist Adam Graham broke, Sturgeon was caught in the fall out, which metaphorically was nuclear! Putting these sex offenders into the women’s prison estate was just one step too far for the Scottish public. It was at the height of this outrage that Sturgeon succumbed and thankfully resigned.
The Scottish public who had become aware of the whole GRRB/Stonewall movement were by some margin opposed to self-identification and the erosion of women and girls rights. Self-identification was and is by far the biggest objection to this ill thought out and badly drafted Bill.
A poll commissioned by the Times found that Scots were not in favour of this at all. Research by the polling company YouGov found that voters concerns were about the main changes in the Gender Recognition (Reform) Scotland Bill.
Lowering the legal age threshold – met with the fiercest opposition with 66% opposed. This included 63% of SNP voters, 67% of Labour voters and 75% of Liberal Democrat voters. There was also strong opposition to shortening the time limit, with 59% against the plan. 60% meanwhile opposed plans to remove the need for a doctor’s diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
When it came to the decision of the UK Government to issue a Section 35 and strike down the Bill, again the public made their feelings very clear. They supported the UK Government and wanted the Bill stopped.
On the question of whether the Westminster government was right to block the law 42 per cent said they were while 15 per cent said they were wrong. Nine per cent said the Scottish government changes were wrong but the UK government should not block them while 8 per cent said they were right — but the UK had an obligation to stop them because of the wider constitutional implications. *The Times.*
What the UK Government articulated was the exact same as those in Scotland that opposed the bill had said. Nobody is anti-trans they are anti self-id! That’s where the changes that Scotland is trying to make are impacting the most. It’s not about being anti-trans people.The exact opposite, in the main people are very sympathetic and tolerant to the trans community. Self-identification is the problem!
The TRA zealots that Sturgeon surrounded herself with did not help either. Indeed, they continue to divide and abuse and bully anyone that does not agree 100% with their stance. They as much as anything brought about the downfall of the Sturgeon regime. That has a certain irony to it!
Every poll carried out, every article written on the subject shows that GRRB and Stonewall Queer Theory are causing the SNP support and members. Indeed, during the election debacle to find her replacement this showed dramatically when it was announced that the SNP were admitting to having lost 50,000 members. Many of us, myself included think that the loss of members is even greater, possibly as high as 70,000 lost members.
It cannot be denied that this divisive policy also resulted in the formation of the ISP and Alba Parties. It has been a disastrous policy for the SNP and the independence movement. Yet, amazingly during the leadership contest Humza Yousaf made an extraordinary claim.
“I suspect we have also gathered a lot of support because of the stance we have taken on equality.
“I don’t doubt that for a minute, particularly amongst some of our younger members, who have told me as much.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/snp-bill-nicola-sturgeon-westminster-government-b2305738.html
Many of us observing the contest could not believe what we were hearing. Every single poll commissioned told the exact opposite. Wings who were the first publication to alert the Scottish public to the dangers of the SNP gender ideology. They published a poll on February 14th that again disproved the SNP rhetoric and stance on Self-identification and GRRB.
During the leadership contest Humza flipped and flopped on the whole question. On the 23rd March he was going to be guided by the legal advice. ““If you get an unequivocal answer from your lord advocate that says this cannot be won, you would do the responsible thing and not take that to court.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/21/humza-yousaf-seems-to-backtrack-over-fight-with-uk-government-on-gender-recognition-bill
However, four days later when he was announced as leader, he had changed his opinion. He was now saying, “Britain had no right to veto Scotland’s gender reform bill, pledging to challenge London’s move to block a bill that makes it easier for people to change their legal gender.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/scotlands-new-snp-leader-yousaf-i-will-challenge-uk-veto-gender-reform-bill-2023-03-27/
Now we hear that this week Humza is likely to challenge the UK Government over this divisive piece of legislation. Only around 23% of Scots are in favour of this Bill. You do not need a degree in politics or mathematics to tell you this is not the issue to challenge the UK government over!
The Supreme Court decision and Sunak’s rejection of a Section 30 has the backing of at least 45%- 47% of the population. The rage in Scotland over the cost of energy has massive support. If you want to challenge Westminster choose either of these subjects and the public will back you the whole way.
However, to challenge on the Section 35 as seems likely, is just another self-inflicted wound on the SNP. It’s a fight that cannot be won. The Supreme Court in London will not back any devolved institution over their view of the sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament.
It may endear Humza to the Green Party nutters and his own TRA zealot nutters, however it will only deepen the rift with the SNP core support and cost him to lose even more members. His great heroine Sturgeon perished on the hill of self-identification, it seems Humza is determined to follow in her footsteps and commit political hari kari!
How the unionists and enemies of Scotland must be enjoying this stupidity. For decades they have been trying unsuccessfully to lay a blow on the SNP. They have never succeeded in their attempts. Primarily, because when it comes to independence they are as blind as SNP are on Queer Theory. When ideology is your only political driver, you are unable to see reality.
Both Self-identification and Unionism are unpopular with the Scottish voters. Both the proponents of these poisonous ideologies seem incapable of accepting that actuality. There are compromises with both that would make them both acceptable to Scottish voters.
I won’t help those in support of the accursed Union. To Humza I say if you want this unpopular bill to get approval you need to seriously amend it. Self-Identification needs removed completely. The age restrictions need left as they are. Physciatric and doctors evaluations need to be kept in place for gender dysphoria. No more secrecy from parents. Take another look at sex education in schools. The most important thing is to listen to both sides of the debate. Do not be like Sturgeon and dare to say that adult human female concerns are not valid! Do that and you may just find both the Scottish public and the UK Government drop their objections.
If you carry on regardless, you will damage your party irreparably and delay the cause of independence further. You will also not remain party leader for any great length of time.You have the opportunity to grab victory from the jaws of defeat and humiliation. Do not challenge the Section 35. It is a battle you cannot win!
A hard-hitting piece, BB, one of your best.
The fact is that placing males into the female prison estate was, and remains, illegal according to Scots, UK and international law, yet both jurisdictions have flouted at least two of those, and the SG, all three. Why? Because they have listened to the bad faith actors of Stonewall and its arms. We can only assume that the SG took legal advice from Stonewall, a lobbing group rather than from its own legal experts, or else, its own legal experts decided to misinterpret the law for reasons know only to them. It also points to the logical conclusion that this will have to be settled in the courts under the auspices of the ESTABLISHED law, not some Mickey mouse law dreamed up by idiots.
If a UK law has been agreed by all parties to it (which it must have been) and it has passed into the body of law pertaining to both jurisdictions, then the SG was acting in an ultra vires fashion when it decided to amend the 2004 GRA to include self-ID, and, therefore, the move by the SG was illegal.
People are, indeed, tolerant of the ‘trans community’ but only up to a point, and we have to start asking questions of that community: a) if someone has no body dysmorphia/dysphoria, can he/she still claim to be ‘trans’ or is this extension merely an extension of the definition by Stonewall and not by any legal route (gender dysmorphia/dysphoria is actually body dysmorphia/dysphoria in line with other, similar body mis-imaging, which is a mental health issue and should not be treated by validation, particularly in children and the young; no doctor would recommend that anorexics be encouraged to starve themselves to death with the state’s help);
b) if there are no indications of body dysmorphia/dysphoria, how genuine can the claims to be ‘trans’ be, and what other motivations might exist – sexual, social contagion, peer pressure, etc.?;
c) it is known in psychology circles that many adult males claiming to be ‘trans’ are autogynephiles whose motivation is sexual, even when they cannot admit that to themselves. There are also many with other paraphilias/fetishes which run to the many, and can be co-existing in multiple forms: voyeurism; touching, taking films and photos without consent; paedophilia; adult baby syndrome and so on are all fetishes that can co-exist in one person.
Are we really saying that all females, regardless of age or religious background, should be subjected to these fetishes in the name of tolerance, and that female safety, dignity and privacy count for nothing against the desires of these men? Is this a civilised society still, or a very uncivilised one where the very freedoms that females require because of the male pressure on them solely because of their biological sex should be thrown away in favour of the male gaze of some, the male deviance of some? Really? Is this what compromise looks like?
If we do not embark upon self-ID, but leave the law as it stands and even tighten up the 2010 Equality Act to emphasise biological sex for both female and male (as the law intended and is evident from reading the Act itself), the social contagion aspect of ‘trans’ will peter out, biological men with a deviant paraphilia will not be allowed to gain entry to female spaces, rights, opportunities, etc. and girls who claim to be ‘trans’ will be kept out of male private spaces. In the end, this will prove to be irresistible as the implications for ‘trans’ men’s rights as ‘men’ will open the floodgates, as they say and cause huge disruptions to financial services. The same will not happen to ‘trans’ women, because, all the indications are that, as ‘women’, they will continue to be treated fiscally as men, as it may surprise many to learn has been the case up to now anyway. The BBC, for instance, continued to pay ‘trans’ ‘women’ the same salaries as men, even when they had ‘transed’, while the female BBC workers were being paid considerably less and only recently, in the pst couple of years, managed to have theirs raised. Equality is fine, just so long as females never have it.
The Unionists are also captured by this bilge: the Lib Dems leading the field; but Labour is also up to its eyeballs in it; and even some Tories believe in it, too. This is what makes the whole ‘trans’ phenomenon a party ideology capture and not some downtrodden enclave of unfortunates. Transsexuals – older men who have fully ‘transitioned’ – will also have to stay out of female spaces, which, to be fair, many do, but, while they have not been a threat to females, they kept the door open to allow this latest invasion. The door now has to be firmly closed against all male intrusion, and then locked, with only females having the key.
Otherwise, as you say, BB, the end of the SNP is in sight, but, to balance that, so will the end of Westminster hegemony be in sight if it dares to introduce self-ID now. Whichever party is in power will falter and fall, just as the SNP is now likely to do – and entirely through its own stupidity and acquiescence to a political and ideological lobby that is as vicious and totalitarian as Orwell foresaw.
Roddy, Thank you for this post. I wonder why Humza has decided to challenge Westminster on the section35? Gender ideology is the most detested policy in Scotland because of the harm it causes to women and girls.
Two things come to mind: 1. He is being pressured/threatened by the Greens, the gender zealots in the party and party membership to challenge the order. He knows it will fail but wishes to put an end to the carping in the party. He may also hope if it fails the Greens might leave the government.
2. He is trying to show his credentials as a believer in Scotland and thereby Scottish Independence. Failure to have the order removed will give him the opportunity to demonstrate the injustice of Westminster’s power over Scotland.
In the long run it will not matter unless ScotGov win and the Bill is enacted. All bets are off if that happens.
Westminster could fix this tomorrow by strengthening the 2010 Equality Act and emphasising ‘biological sex’ which the Act, in fact, specifies within its body. Lady Haldane’s interpretation (of including ‘legal sex’ for holders of a GRC) would wipe out all female rights, as she must have known when she made that ruling.
It is time that we made it plain that people can dress how they choose, call themselves what they choose, but they cannot usurp the rights of another group by claiming to be members of it. If ‘trans’ people wish to be taken seriously by society, then they must stand up as ‘trans’, contest elections as ‘trans’, agree to third spaces. Anything less simply lays them open to being accused of parasitism.
The only compromise that would not destroy female rights is a GRC that is a total fiction, while all original records are kept and may be accessed by police and any other bodies authorised to do so. That would involve no ‘legal womanhood’, except for very specific and very, very limited purposes to avoid embarrassment, rather than to give carte blanche to intrude on female rights. In other words, there can be no ‘legal womanhood’, only legal ‘transhood’.
Anything else would be validation, and we are talking of validation of, to a massive extent within the ‘trans’ movement, paraphilias, one of which is paedophilia, the most dangerous one for children. I am not claiming that all ‘trans’ are paedophiles, but this group has attached itself, parasitically, to both the LGB and TQ++++ groupings. If Stonewall persists in giving house room to all kinds of deviance and extending the definition of ‘trans’ away from any kind of medical requirement, it absolutely deserves to lose.
Black people did not claim that they were actually white people in a black skin, women did not claim to be men in a female shell and gay people did not claim to be straight people in a gay outer layer. They all fought for their rights as the people they, in fact, were and asked no quarter of anyone on that score. Let us be absolutely honest about this: these ‘trans’ men and women are claiming to be the very opposite of that which they actually are. If they are prepared to stay out of all female spaces, rights, opportunities, sports, etc., if they are prepared to stand up and fight for themselves as ‘trans’, this whole mess could be over tomorrow. The vital question remains: why will they not do that?
Sorry Roddy, Humza’s not listening to you, me or anyone else outside the old cabal. Perhaps it’s time to move on and focus on what we can do to effect change. Hammering into the nuSNP is like Sturgeon herself trying to defend the english from the Brexit they voted for. Let it go, they are lost, they are too far down the rabbit hole.
I don’t doubt Yousaf’s claim that the SNP have “gathered a lot of support because of the stance we have taken on equality”. If true, and I’m sure it is, then the SNP has lost even more members than they have thus far admitted.
If, let’s say, the SNP has attracted 20,000 new members because of the stance they have taken on equality, and if, as recently reported, the membership has now fallen to 45,000 (10,000 less than the figure just a month ago), this would mean they have lost circa 100,000 members from the 125,000 peak in exchange for attracting the 20,000 new members. Other combinations of numbers are possible, but I’m sure you get the gist. If I was Yousaf, I wouldn’t be boasting about this.
Given that the SNP is reported to be funding Murrell’s legal fees, and given that the party was hardly awash with funds according to its latest accounts, it’s hard to see how the party can avoid bankruptcy. Further resignations from membership are likely, especially when members find out what their subs are being used for, and it has been reported that some MPs and MSPs are going to withhold their monthly contributions to the party because they don’t want to be funding Murrell’s legal costs. If there hasn’t already been an emergency NEC meeting to examine membership numbers, party funding and decide whether or not the party is able to continue as a going concern, surely there needs to be one soon? Or are the SNP being bankrolled by mysterious benefactors that are yet to be disclosed to the Electoral Commission?
What happens if a political party goes bankrupt? Do all their elected politicians retain their seats and become independents? Alba might accept a few into their ranks but most SNP MSPs and MPs aren’t fit to join Alba.
I think with the exception of Tory Party all the parties in UK if they were commercial entities would have to stop trading today!
As to the SNP NEC holding a meeting and investigating anything, almost laughable Colin. Sturgeon appointed misfits and halfwits could be characters in a Mel Brookes or Monty Python movie. Unless it is men in frocks and lipstick shades they are as much use as an ashtray on a Harley Davidson!
You are the OLD … Roddy.
We are the NEW.
Goodbye.
Get someone to tell you the story about the old bull and the young bull.
Would that be the same NEW that has all but destroyed the SNP, Seer? Would that be the same NEW that has no handle on the history of the SNP and those who built it up from scratch, holding jumble sales, dinner dances, cake and candy stalls, ticket and prize sales – that NEW? Or the NEW that continues to castigate Alex Salmond as a has-been when no one – I repeat, no one – else has ever brought us closer to independence when it passed to his successor who squandered it all – that NEW? Or the NEW that appears to believe that young people never grow up and never grow wiser and that men claiming to be women are far more worthy of support than real women, many of who actually worked hard to grow the party? That NEW, Seer?
Sigh. Here we go again. “Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad”. This old but true observation has certainly been demonstrated clearly during the past six months. Absolute madness. But that’s what absolute power can do to you, if not careful. The absence of proper checks and balances did for Nicola Sturgeon in the end IMO. Humza looks like he us trying to pick up where she left off. However, his power is already in shaky ground, and if he doubles down on this nonsense, he won’t last very long.
Have to say BB that was an excellent article. Well done. Rumblings of Sturgeon stepping down imminently going by the rumours. Very hard hitting articles on how she ran the party coming to the fore. Cannot say the country was not warned by people like yourself. Hopefully get the country back to be run like under the Salmond days which I have to say they were doing OK.
The Continuity FM had already committed himself (can I say “himself”?) to taking the Section 35 Order to the UKSC for judgement.
On 6 March, Yousaf responded to 5 questions asked of him by:
Equality Network
Scottish Trans
LEAP Sports Scotland
LGBT Youth Scotland
Stonewall Scotland
LGBT Health and Wellbeing
Part of his response was:
“Scotland is doing nothing new in bringing in the GRR bill. Since our legislation passed, two more countries have passed similar legislation that humanises the process. We are just catching up with other countries in this respect, then. There is nothing controversial in this legislation.
I voted for the GRR bill and, as First Minister, I will challenge the UK Government’s Section 35 order. As a devolved issue, the Scottish Parliament has the right to decide, and the UK Government has no right to exert its authority over our pursuit of human rights. Their challenge of the GRR bill is not only an affront to trans rights, but also an affront to Scottish democracy. I will support the GRR and repeal section 35. I am unapologetic and unequivocal on that issue.”
That, despite the evidence to the contrary, Yousaf believes that “there is nothing controversial in this legislations” illustrates to ne that he is either ill-informed or ignorant of the facts – or both.
Then he goes on to say that “the UK government has no right to exert its authority….”! What does Yousaf not understand about the Scotland Act 1998? Of course the UK government has the “right to exert its authority”, because that was how the Act was designed – i.e. to provide the UK government with a veto over anything that negatively (in their opinion) impacts on the rest of the UK.
Finally, you have to at least show respect for Yousaf’s ambition, if not for his intellect or knowledge! He states that “I will support the GRR and repeal section 35, I am unapologetic and unequivocal on that issue.”
Good for him – showing a bit of backbone! However, our FM repealing “section 35” will be a clever trick indeed! Perhaps one of his lackies can have a wee whisper in his ear that section 35 is part of the Scotland Act 1998 and that Act was passed at WESTMINSTER – not Holyrood!
Or, maybe Yousaf has been learning from his mistress, and he has a secret plan to repeal section 35 that no-one else has thought about!
So, this the best that the SNP can provide as their leader and FM! What happened to all the real talent within the SNP? It’s rhetorical – we know the answer – they left the devolution party for others that are seeking independence!
The SNP in my view are finished.
Eight years of squandering mandates, assisting take Scotland out of the EU, destroying party democracy, stuffing the NEC, the abolition of the National Council, the introduction of utterly unpopular policies, rigged candidate selection- and not just the recent sham of Yousaf as leader, restrictions on the ability to have raised and debated conference motions, and of course a government and a party mired in dark deeds, makes you realize that the SNP is past saving.
None of this happened overnight. The elected gravy train of elected MPs and MSPs with a very few exceptions did nothing to stop this and the destruction of a once great party. Bought and sold for English gold.
For me the SNP is now an absolute blocker to independence and to allow things to get better, the SNP needs to be utterly replaced. And replaced it will be. Of that there is no doubt.
And the new First Minister he is not going to be long for the job. Let him enjoy his day in the sun licking ass at the King’s coronation whilst others support the AUOB march scheduled for the same date. The symbolism of why he was the rigged continuity candidate could not be clearer.
Interesting you highlight the extremist trans faction being responsible for her downfall. I believe she used them to silence critics and drive out rivals rather in the way Starmer used false antisemitism claims to remove his rivals on the left. Ironic if it ended up rebounding on her.
No I said the GRRB nonsense brought about her resignation not the TRA zealots though admittedly they didn’t help
Indeed, BB, it was the illogic and absolute bilge of the GRRB that was the beginning of the end for her because it was totally unworkable within the law. If Humza also flouts the law, he will come a cropper, too. The law specifically states that housing males in the female estate is illegal – that is, UK law, Scots law and international law. The fact that ‘trans’ rights extension collides directly with established female rights under all three laws was her undoing. It was listening to Stonewall law that created this mess in the first place. Stonewall and its Scottish arms deliberately misinterpreted the law in order to gain advantage and braindead people believed them.
It’s not the left, Stumac, it is the hard left, which the other side of the same coin as the hard right, which it always enables. Two totalitarian sides of the same coin.