I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m becoming increasingly concerned that the GRR issue is being intentionally used as a “gateway drug” to convert former Yessers to both unionism and Toryism. As bizarre as it may seem, Wings Over Scotland today published its twenty-first post in a row about the GRR, with the subtext of that editorial obsession presumably being that trans rights are the defining and all-consuming battle of our age. Forget about independence, forget about social justice, forget about the cost of living, forget about the Ukraine war, forget about the climate emergency, forget about the threat of nuclear weapons, forget about Covid – all that matters, all day, every day, is the women-with-beards issue. Ironically, Stuart Campbell is actually closer to Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Green Party than he is to the vast majority of the Scottish population in one key sense – ie. he thinks the trans issue is far, far more important than absolutely anything else. That represents a catastrophic loss of perspective – unless, of course, there is a wider agenda behind it.
My own guess is that Campbell’s coded announcement a few weeks ago that he no longer supports independence, and his more direct announcement that he has now become a Tory voter, is part of a process intended to gradually soften up his readers. If he had suddenly said out of the blue “join me in abandoning independence and supporting the Tories” he’d have encountered substantial resistance, so instead he’s giving his readers time to get used to the idea of their hero being a Tory-voting de facto unionist, in the hope that what they used to despise will slowly become normalised as something that “people like them” do. The next part of the strategy is to keep whipping up the women-with-beards hysteria on a daily basis (perhaps we should run a sweepstake on when Campbell will next publish a post that is NOT about the trans issue), and get his readers so angry and obsessed about the subject to the exclusion of everything else, and get the focus of that rage so fully trained on a Nicola Sturgeon systematically portrayed as a monster, that when he finally chooses his perfect moment to urge them to vote Tory and reject independence “for now”, they’ll be receptive to the message.
Nobody can directly stop this process from happening. All we can do is point out to people the way in which the manipulation is working, and if certain predictions come true – for example, if Campbell does urge his readers to consider voting Tory in Scottish seats or to abstain – they might start joining up the dots for themselves. But if they’re determined not to see what’s happening, they won’t.
I was asked a few days ago, by someone who evidently thought they were posing a killer question, how I would recommend voting in the Bath constituency if you want both Scottish independence and the protection of women’s rights. It’s important to stress this is not a Bath-specific or England-specific question, because unless Alba stand in every Scottish constituency (which I’m almost certain they won’t), voters will face precisely the same dilemma in Scotland. That’s exactly why there’s such an obvious and natural progression between Campbell announcing that he will vote Tory in Bath and him eventually telling his readers to either vote Tory or abstain in Scotland.
The reality, of course, is that in Bath, as in many constituencies in Scotland, it is unlikely to be possible to find a candidate that both supports Scottish independence and opposes gender self-ID. As a voter, you therefore have to decide what your first principle is, and for me it’s that Scotland must be free to govern itself and make its own decisions. My second priority is social justice, and when you put those two imperatives together a Tory vote simply becomes impossible, whether in Bath or anywhere else. If l lived in Bath and there was a Green candidate, as there has been in all but one general election since 1979, I strongly suspect I would vote Green. That would mean voting for a pro-self-ID party, but it categorically would not entail abandoning my own opposition to self-ID. It’s perfectly possible to advocate for change within the party you are either a member of or that you vote for. Indeed, I believe I’m right in saying the Green Party of England and Wales is the only political party Campbell has ever tried to join, and he did so with the intention of supporting the anti-self-ID faction within the party. That makes it all the more bizarre that he isn’t even considering a Green vote and is so hellbent on backing the Tories.
The commenter Wee Walker made an intelligent point on an earlier thread – he pointed out that the party Campbell now supports is, if credible sources are to believed, seriously considering withdrawing the United Kingdom from the European Convention on Human Rights. That is an extremist position that no other non-Faragist party of any significance would ever contemplate, and would put Britain in line with Russia and Belarus. So let me put this question. Even if you’re so obsessed with the trans issue that you think it’s more important than self-determination for your country, or than social justice and tackling poverty, surely to God you don’t think it’s worth abandoning human rights over? Without the ECHR, all bets would be off – the death penalty could come back, there would be no protection against torture, minorities could be persecuted, workers’ rights would be called into question, etc, etc, etc. No individual issue weighs more heavily than all of that. (Admittedly, Campbell’s recent retweet history implies that he is – at the very least – not unsympathetic to a specific trans prisoner being put to death in Ohio, so maybe I’m asking a stupid question.)
Campbell finishes his twenty-first consecutive trans-flavoured post with the question: “What’s happening to our country?” Well, which country do you mean – England, or the UK? Either way, much of the answer goes back to the door of the Tory government in London – which you’re planning to vote for, Stuart. And if you think the Tories can’t make things any worse, just sit back and watch the results of your own handiwork.
