Welcome along to the latest in what is becoming a series of “the GRR war is over, or ought to be” posts. I’ve already pointed out that any chance of self-ID being introduced in Scotland is essentially dead this side of the next Westminster general election. Although Alister Jack’s veto will be reviewed in court, I know of no legal expert who seriously believes that he will be overruled – not because his decision was in any way justified, but simply because Westminster wrote the constitutional rule-book to suit itself and the courts are required to enforce it.
But it now looks increasingly clear that the effect of recent events will go beyond the general election, and that’s for one key reason – there is now a quiet, sullen acceptance in the SNP that they were on the wrong side of public opinion on this issue. The polling evidence has at long last become too compelling for them to ignore. Yes, of course, they’re still paying lip-service to the idea that there is a democratic mandate for the GRR Bill, but you can see in their eyes that they no longer truly believe it. It wasn’t that long ago that the likes of Mark McGeoghegan could claim with a straight face that Alba “transphobia” and “bigotry” was holding Yes back in the opinion polls and people would nod along as if that was a credible suggestion. It would only provoke a hollow laugh now. It’s still highly debatable whether the GRR controversy has had much of a detrimental effect on independence support, but if any harm has indeed been caused, it’s beyond dispute that the main problem was the SNP leadership attempting to introduce full-fat self-ID against the public’s wishes.
That belated realisation will have concrete effects. However passionate the leadership are about trans rights, they’re not knowingly in the self-harm business and they’re quite capable of kicking gender reform into the long grass if that’s necessary to head off any threat to their electoral chances. And Alister Jack has, ironically, made it far easier for them to do that, because his imperial veto has essentially released the SNP from their obligations to the Greens. They can effectively now afford to do absolutely nothing about the GRR while still not jeopardising Green participation in government. I suspect after any Starmer win at the general election, the public rationale for SNP inaction will be that Labour would simply repeat the exercise of the veto if a GRR Bill Mark II is passed – Starmer did not, after all, oppose the Tory veto, and since then he’s made clear that gender reform will now be decided on a UK-wide basis.
Which brings me to my next point – Labour will be just as terrified of the recent opinion poll evidence as the SNP are, and will reach the same quiet conclusion. They’ll remain nominally committed to self-ID but will deprioritise it and soft-pedal it and water it down as much as humanly possible. In any case it’ll definitely be London Labour making the final call, which leaves any continued haranguing of the SNP looking a bit redundant.
Meanwhile, although the decision to house trans prisoners in line with their birth sex is only provisional, it now seems almost inconceivable that the result of the review will not uphold that new practice.
In a nutshell, the gender critical side of the debate have basically won on all of the important points for the foreseeable future. The veto wasn’t the ‘right’ way to win, but that wasn’t their fault and it doesn’t change the facts on the ground. There’s now simply no longer any point in them continuing the war or opening up new fronts in it when the cause of independence is so clearly at risk of being caught in the crossfire.
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