SNP in secret attempt to challenge Supreme Court ruling on sex

I've never known a nationalist/populist party hate their citizens as much as the SNP do. Then again, if Scots are stupid enough to vote for them, why shouldn't the SNP keep thumbing their noses at them.

I know a number of former SNP voters who will not vote for them again while pressing for a Scotland where women have less rights than they do now.

@ArabellaSaurus Well here you go, Arabella.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2026_Scottish_Parliament_election

According to that, SNP support has dropped massively in the last few years, but apart from a blip in summer 2024 when they were seemingly neck and neck with Labour, they are still way ahead of the other parties. Their share has been fairly stable for about the last 3 years, with the biggest drop in winter 2022-3 (Bryson-gate, campervan). Labour will have been negatively affected by being in power at Westminster, of course.

Looks like, in order
SNP, about 34%
Reform, about 21%
Labour
Lib Dem/Green/Tories
Alba

It would be interesting to see some stats on people's reasons for choosing or abandoning a party.

Baroness Hale of Richmond (former president of the UK Supreme Court) was from a mainly academic background though she also practised as a barrister to some extent.

@Hedgehogforshort Again, you confuse me with the SNP, I'm quite clear on the pointlessness of invoking the ECtHR, what I'm wondering is what confection of legalish bunkum has convinced Swinney & co to embark on this frolic.
(One can become an ECtHR judge from a purely academic background, “The judges shall be of high moral character and must either possess the qualifications required for appointment to high judicial office or be jurisconsults of recognised competence.” If memory serves, the latter academic route was the case for at least one judge in Goodwin.)

What actual recourse is there to escape from these turbulent priests? I struggle to believe they are still on course to win in May.

@HildegardP hey up !!!!

the ECHR are very senior judges put forward by each signatory state, most cases never even get a hearing an McLeod et al as you say have no chance

i think clutching at straws is the best way to describe the SNP defence.

There is no European case law to support the idea that men can be in women’s spaces and plenty of law protecting women’s right to privacy and dignity.

The other point to make is that only individuals can apply to the ECHR about an infringement of their human rights.

nation states can take another national state to the ECHR but only under limited circumstances.

Scotland in law is not a nation state, or a country legally in international law, it is a province or principality of the UK.

It can not appeal to the ECHR and is totally and utterly bound by the SC FWS ruling.

Have they not even been paid yet? Unbelievable! The utter contempt for the wishes of the people is really quite a thing.

Aren't FWS still waiting to meet with the first minister and for the money they're owed? These tras get monthly meetings and money from the Scottish taxpayer!

I meant the ECtHR, hence my mention of judges without judicial experience & from non-UK backgrounds. Whittle, Maugham, McCloud & co keep wishcasting about the ECtHR, & it's bloody obvious that the SNP leadership don't understand it or how one arrives there so I wondered if that Court was a tool of bamboozlement.

@HildegardP mr O’faherty has no rights of intervention it was just his personal comments of twaddle which has no legal weight or authority anywhere, so no it will not win the day.

as for judges at the level of judicial review, they are senior and experienced and have to demonstrate significant experience as barristers.

RASSO is processes belonging to the criminal justice system, not judging a case before the court.

The application by FWS has nothing to do with RASSo

For my own amusement, I have written to my SNP MSP, Rona Mackay, asking about the declaration of incompatibility. It's my first contact with her so I have no idea if I will get any response or not.

I wonder if the D-list intellects of the SNP are being bamboozled at their bi-weekly meetings with trans activists that Michael "Yogyakarta Principles" O'Flaherty's automatic right of intervention at the ECtHR will win the day for them?
I do worry that the Court's judges can be rather naive, given that there's no requirement to have held a judicial post, far less to have any familiarity with RASSO. Then there's the fact that though the UK has of late been going backwards in viewing women as fully human, it at least began further forward than some of the countries that supply judges to the Court, say Poland, Spain or Germany.

Equality Act (2010)

Well, never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

I, too, doubt the court will grant such a declaration; and to some extent I think it's just lawyers doing what lawyers do, which is throwing every bit of mud at the wall in case something sticks, however unlikely.

I agree - it looks like a completely political move to me. Swinney seems to be saying that a Scottish government can suspend the operation of a UK law on the say so of a Scottish court, and for the most moral reasons.

But assuming my previous post is right I can't see what lawful basis there would be to delay any policy change unless there was a prospect of the UK Parliament at Westminster amending the Equalities Act 2010 and there seems absolutely no prospect of that happening.

Some of the reactions to the FWS judgment have been really strange. There was Victoria McCloud who was going to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights and said that as a trans person McCloud should have had rights of audience. But McCloud would have known - as a former Judge - that appeal courts deciding points of law simply don't work that way for any appeal and never have. Then there was the senior civil servant Melanie Field who said that the Equalities Act 2010 was designed to protect anyone with a GRC. But as a senior civil servant she ought to know that the Courts don't interpret Parliamentary intention on the basis of what some civil servants say. She's just admitted that she didn't do her job properly. And the UK government's current dithering. They do need to puss or get off the pot.

I do not agree with this at all. The defence that the Scot’s parliament are using is a nonsense. The lawyers would have to refer to ECHR case law on the incompatibility argument.

There is no case law, as set out by NC and Foran.

and no realistic prospect of the defence succeeding.

the law itself stands until it is changed

I think that's right. But if the court says the law is incompatible with human rights legislation then the Scottish Government will have a stronger argument to delay further changing its policy.

It would also force the UK government to either to defend the EA2010 and appeal such a declaration, or commit to changing it. Either piss, or get off the pot, so to speak.

If you think about it it's a great wrecking move by the Scottish government.

My understanding is that while a court can declare a law incompatible with the ECHR the law itself stands until it is changed. So even if the SNP get their declaration (which I thought was normally issued by the European Court of Human Rights) the Equalities Act 2010 as interpreted by the FWS case stands until (and unless) the Westminster Parliament changes it. If that's right, it's nonsense for John Swinney to state that the Scottish Government must comply with ECHR rights. No- the Scottish Government must comply with Scots law, as declared by the UK Supreme Court. Presumably Swinney's been advised on this. Ignoring the rule of law is no more legitimate for Swinney than it is for Donald Trump.

Could anyone who knows more comment on this?

I imagine it suits nationalists' purposes to claim they're the good guys being overruled by London institutions.

"GC women are actually men."

Green men 😁

Posted this on the other thread about this topic and thought it would be of interest here.

Information on TwiX from Trina Budge (of FWS):

https://x.com/hightreebud/status/2009397900036726834
"If you wonder why @scotgov was influenced by "Convention rights" argument and reverted back to claiming access by self-id, this could form part of the answer. Trans orgs have bi-monthly meetings with officials and regular roundtables with Ministers. No-one else gets this access."

If the definition of women is, er, flexible enough for men to be women, then it's surely flexible enough for the Greens to be confident that any woman trying to assert her rights is actually - a man - and can be properly silenced without misogyny.

Problem solved. GC women are actually men.

I predict responses along the lines of "oh we didn't mean THOSE womens should be protected - hateful bigots get no protections from misogyny, only the nice ladies"..

Article in Unherd by Joan Smith

https://archive.ph/hQ7BU

https://unherd.com/newsroom/snp-has-no-right-to-defy-supreme-court-gender-ruling/

Eta it's worth scrolling down to read Lang C's comment.