Westminster plays ‘high stakes game’ over gender recognition bill | Scotland

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Just moments after the Scottish Parliament voted to pass gender-recognition legislation in the SNP on Thursday, debate was disrupted by protesters shouting from a public balcony, underlining how controversial the new law is.

Still, Nicola Sturgeon, who struggled for six years to get action on the statute book, considers it a huge victory. But within minutes, the UK government announced it was temporarily pressing the bill, throwing the Scottish government’s plans into disarray and threatening a constitutional crisis.

Behind the scenes at Westminster, government sources were doing their best to stress that they did not actively intend to go nuclear and every bill passed by the Scottish Parliament spends the next 28 days being assessed by law officers. They are considering what, if any, amendments need to be made to UK legislation to iron out any cross-border anomalies.

The technical device used is Section 104 of the Code of Scotland. But the power threatened by the Scottish Secretary, Alister Jacques, after the Bill was passed—the section 35 order forbidding the Bill to be sent for royal assent—was never used.

He is there when he feels the new powers are adversely affecting the legislation intended for Westminster. The legislation in question here is the UK Equality Act.

One example given by Whitehall Insiders of the potential harm caused is that if a Scottish prisoner in an English prison received a certificate of sex recognition three months after identifying as a woman, the prison could be breaking the Equality Act for refusing it. Transfer request to the women’s prison.

Another is schools or colleges refusing to acknowledge Scottish-born pupils aged 16-17 with certificates when using single-sex facilities is required. Employers who refuse to recognize the degrees can also be sued.

If Rishi Sunak’s government triggers Section 35, Scotland’s first minister will almost certainly seek judicial review. A court battle over what the SNP might present as Westminster denying Holyrood its democratic right to make its own laws – in the wake of a High Court ruling in another referendum – could be a gift to the independence cause.

UK government insiders say there is a risk to their actions, but insist they are only following the playbook of Scotland law. However, some critics are not convinced of their motives, saying there are political benefits to the Conservatives in keeping transgender rights plans in the headlines for weeks.

They believe Sturgeon has underestimated the degree of opposition to her bill. A YouGov poll for The Times last week claimed two-thirds of Scots disapproved of its key features. Some Conservatives believe they can boost their vote in Scotland at the next election if they reduce politics back to culture wars.

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The Guardian has been told that a former adviser to Boris Johnson is behind the UK government’s response to new gender reform laws. Dougie Smith, who orchestrated the Johnson administration’s “wake-up war,” has been tasked with “weaponising” the transgender rights cause ahead of the next election.

A ministerial source claims the long-term Tory aide, who is close to Sunak, is acting as a “puppet master” for Equality Minister Kemi Badnoch, who is at the forefront of government strategy. He was said to have been behind Johnson’s strategy of dividing over racial, heritage and cultural issues by allying the Conservative Party with working-class voters in the “red wall” seats.

Some in Westminster believe that the UK government is just taking a stand and that Section 35 will never, in fact, be triggered. But one insider says: “It’s a high-stakes game. If they do, the government is simply providing the greatest justification for independence for Scotland that the SNP will ever have.”

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