S35 decision tomorrow

https://twitter.com/Wommando/status/1733140628974800935

A thread gathering news articles.

I assume somebody somewhere is still taken in by this nonsense?

Scottish Court: "Block is lawful"
Humza Yousuf: "It's a dark day for devolution"

Hmm mate, a SCOTTISH court said it was lawful. The SCOTTISH court said it was in line with SCOTTISH law.

Not an English court or the Supreme Court. A SCOTTISH court.

In other words they agree that the SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT tried to over step it's power and act beyond the limits of it's jurisdiction as a devolved power. Not Westminster. The Scottish Government.

Let's just stress this: the Scottish government tried to overreach on its power and make decisions beyond its borders. That's not devolution mate. That's a attempted power grab.

To be clear, I care very much about diversity and human rights (I don't believe in the myth of 'progress'), but these words have been repurposed. They don't mean 'human' rights anymore, they mean rights for the right people. They don't mean 'diversity' anymore, they mean more power for the right people.

I cannot describe how galling it is to see Education, Health, Infrastructure crumble while these smug faced idiots continue to mouth absurd platitudes about progress and diversity and human rights.

They're not exactly unelected, but the system is such that it's virtually impossible to vote someone out. Which is what bothers me - brings to mind Tony Benn's 5 questions:

• What power have you got?

I’d be horrified if the Scottish govt appeals this comprehensive judgement - pure wasting taxpayers’ money during a cost of living crisis - but I wouldn’t be surprised if they appeal; they live in a bubble where (mis)spending thousands of pounds doesn’t get you sacked.

Very pleased to hear this

The acknowledgment of the complexities by the Judge is something the Scottish government don’t seem to beable to grasp. I wonder why?

Well not quite. If nobody ticked green or ranked them on the list they wouldn’t have seats.

So unelected? That is, no citizen actually voted for these people but they have the authority and people take them seriously to comment on national matters? That is absolutely crazy.

Very much agree we need a second chamber @Waitwhat23 . I also think the quality of the opposition is pretty shit. Ruth Davidson was a match for Sturgeon and took none of her nonsense, Douglas Ross is a poor politician and you don't hear much from Anas Sarwar. Useless is so - well - useless, that anyone should be able to rip him to shreds every FM questions.

Well thank fuck for that.

Lorna Slater didn't even get a reasonable share of the votes in her own constituency.

I used to think that the SNP wanted independence. I used to vote for them and I voted yes in the referendum.

I've grown to realise that they really, really don't. They've no intention of giving up the useful scapegoat of Westminister when they've really fucked something up. They have no accountability and that's the way they like it. If Scotland actually became Independent, they'd actually be on the hook.

I was furious when the referendum went through. Now I'm intensely glad that folk living in Scotland have some form of pushback against the nonsense policies which the SNP/Greens come up with. There's no second chamber here so it's the only way to stop poor legislation like this.

The Greens have indicated that this is their line and Humsa needs to be brave and break the Bute House agreement or be paggered in the next election.

Even the most 'fuck Westerminister' SNP follower must be having a wee think to themselves if this legislation, unpopular as it is in Scotland, is the hill they want to die on.

https://twitter.com/STVNews/status/1733116697727345062

No. They are "list" MSPs, elected on proportional representation. When we vote for the scottish parliament we get two papers. One is for your constituency MSP and that is standard first past the post.

Then there are regional MSPs who don't represent a specific constituency but an area. Those are on a separate ballot naming just the parties not the people. So you rank in order of preference and they work it all out in a very convoluted manner. Each party ranks its candidates in order too - so for the "West Scotland" region, Harvie would be No 1, Ross Greer No 2 and so on. Then when votes are counted and seats allocated, the first however many on each party list gets a seat.

https://www.parliament.scot/msps/about-msps/how-msps-are-elected

The whole idea of the system was to try to avoid an overall majority and force collaborative government. Not really working though.

Along with everyone else, I'm pleased that this lawsuit has failed. Lady Justice Haldane seemed to be very sensible, saying the following:

...while the challenge to the section 35 order failed, “in so concluding it is important to recognise the novelty and complexity of the arguments and the sophisticated manner in which those arguments were presented before me and from which I derived considerable assistance”.

She has looked at the evidence and weighed up what made sense, which most definitely wasn't Self ID.

Maggie Chapman being interviewed on Radio 4.
bitterly disappointed
voted for overwhelmingly
if the UK government doesn't like our laws they can cast them aside
it shows the devolution settlement is a failure
The Tories have squashed the little bit of hope held by the trans community of Scotland.

When challenged that the Court of Session had decided there was a conflict between the GRR and the Equality Act, MC blustered on, something about section 35 never invoked before and that it was done for ideological reasons.

The Greens is just gender and TRA now

Odd when actual green policy is more pertinent

Have any of the Greens; Harriet, Slater, Personpeeps, every won an election where their name was actually on the ballot paper. As I understand it, they owe their 'elected' positions to PR and their ministerial posts to the weakness of the SNP.

*should be Harvie not Harriet, but I'm leaving it. I think autocorrupt is a terf.

Alister Jack? Agree though, ask anyone in Scotland what they want the government what they want the government to spend money/time on and they will say health, education, economy. (Just the same as any voter in England/Wales/N Ireland.)

I would be very surprised if self-id even made the top 10 of issues. But spending the money on repeated court cases isn't really about self-id, it's about showing how different and special Scotland is. 🙄

Alistair Jack 👏👏👏“Following this latest court defeat for the Scottish Government, their ministers need to stop wasting taxpayers’ money pursuing needless legal action and focus on the real issues which matter to people in Scotland - such as growing the economy and cutting waiting lists.”

I think the SNP are going to struggle to put the pink leggings back in the box of public perception plus Useless apparently knows that some of them are "at it"....

ETA to counteract my phone's ongoing desire to make me look stupider than I am...

They will appeal. 100% they will appeal.

There are two things going on here which I don't think is immediately obvious to those of you who are not living in Scotland. The absolute main aim of the Scottish government is independence. That is their number one priority and everything they do plays into that.

The self-ID thing is manna from heaven for them. It lets them play the "Poor wee Scotland being told what to do by those nasty Toaries in Westmonster" game, and their supporters lap it up. How dare Rishi/Boris/the English tell US what we can and cannot do it our own country?? The actual topic of the disagreement is irrelevant. They would be doing the same on any other point of law.

They will appeal this decision for a whole host of reasons:

1. It keeps up with the nasty English telling us what we can't do narrative.
2. It keeps their wee pals in the Greens happy and they need the Greens to get votes through parliament.
3. It keeps the heat off the SNP financial shenanigans and Sturgeon's arrest.
4. Detracts attention from #humzabinshaggin which has been trending for days.

Unfortunately we haven't heard the end of this.

Is it irrelevant?

Say Labour forms the next Westminster government after the GE and the SNP and Scottish Labour pass a pretty much unchanged GRR bill at Holyrood.

Do you really think the Labour Westminster government will mount a legal challenge? Because I don't.

They'll be more likely to table legislation as bad or worse

Interesting that the BBC article explains what the GRR would have done, but merely sets out that the UK govt argued that it would have an impact on equalities legislation, not what that impact would be. Why can't the BBC ever explain the actual issue so that the readers are informed about what this is actually all about.