Telegraph: Rishi Sunak set to block Nicola Sturgeon's trans law tonight

[ResisterRex]

This is the reporting from their live blog:

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/01/16/rishi-sunak-strikes-nurses-news-latest-keir-starmer-brexit/

"Rishi Sunak is to block Nicola Sturgeon's controversial gender reforms after receiving clear legal advice that they would undermine women's rights, the UK Government is set to announce tonight.

The Telegraph understands that Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary, is set to tell the First Minister on Monday evening that he will issue a Section 35 veto to prevent the law, which was passed at Holyrood in December, from coming into force.
The move is certain to spark yet another bitter constitutional row between Ms Sturgeon's SNP administration in Edinburgh and the UK Government.
Ahead of the announcement, the First Minister said a block would amount to using trans people as a "political weapon". The Scottish Government is almost certain to seek to overturn the veto in the Scottish Courts.
However, UK Government lawyers have advised that the Bill, which would allow people as young as 16 to self-identify their legal gender, "cuts across" UK-wide legislation on equalities.
Mr Jack is expected to write to Ms Sturgeon, the Commons speaker and Holyrood's Presiding Officer informing them of his decision to invoke Section 35 of the Scotland Act.
The measure, seen as a "nuclear option", has never been used before in the history of devolution.
He is then due to formally lay the Order in the Commons tomorrow, and expand on his reasons for doing so. It is expected that Mr Jack will address the Commons in a statement on Tuesday."

Where's the polling and election advice story from? I've not seen it and am curious.

The Alistair Jack statement, read out by Evan on Today just now sounded like they were sending it back to Holyrood to look at removing clashes with the Equalities Act?

Of course it was. That's why it had to be as batshit as they could make it, to force Westminster to step in.

Why is it this?

Women will be interested, as many are on here, but it’s not typically a hot topic with everyone else

pp might be right about SNP using it but the legal side is rearing it’s head over anything else

and agree with pp that part is interesting

How do you know what he thinks about women’s rights? He has two daughters. I can’t imagine he wants this hassle so you have the wrong end of the stick. And it’s completely democratic, what’s undemocratic is Sturgeon trying to change rules across the U.K. with her ridiculous posturing.

Who cares about what his intentions are as long as it gets done?!

More sunlight. I shall be very interested to see what Labour do

im also interested in the polls that say sunak is out of step with the public on this

Leaving aside whether Sturgeon's law is the right approach to take

That’s a rather large thing to conveniently ‘leave aside’ if your interest is in what is - and isn’t - undemocratic.

This has made me so hopeful.

I couldn't care less about how much I personally align with whoever rides in on the sane white horse, as long as SOMEONE does.

I can actually see that this could become a huge headache for the PM, so I do appreciate them actually following the legal advice.

im also interested in the polls that say sunak is out of step with the public on this

You'll be waiting some time I imagine.

Or it was a poll on Twitter 😂

Leaving aside whether Sturgeon's law is the right approach to take, overruling the Scottish parliament is undemocratic.

It's undemocratic of the Scottish Parliament to push through a bill which the majority of Scots don't support and which affects rights of people in the whole of the U.K.

Leaving aside whether Sturgeon's law is the right approach to take, overruling the Scottish parliament is undemocratic.

If this law stands, I could get a GRC. My husband could get a GRC. Neitherof us are gender dysphoric. Neither if us would intend to live as the opposite sex (what does that even mean) but the Scottish Bill does not define this or make clear what happens if a false declaration is made. If my birth certificate is changed, how can anyone ever say I am not the sex that I say I am, even if my appearance suggests otherwise. That would have an impact on many areas of my life (thank goodness my days of requiring mat leave are over).

Forgot the most important bit........I don't live in Scotland.

the SNP and Greens have a clear majority, the government using this mechanism is provoking a constitutional problem - many Tories do not agree with what Sunak is doing.

It is not about protecting women's rights, it is about having a constitutional argument over a divisive issue. Long term, this is not going to be helpful.

Politics is about popularity.

Why would you try to appeal to a minority (in this case, the RW base), if the majority supposedly don’t like it?

What’s that going to achieve?

Wow this is huge. Thank you Tories. Never thought I would say that. What a relief.
Is this the end of it? Can the Scottish Govt appeal or something? Anyone know the process?

This is a huge cultural watershed moment- really taking this issue massively mainstream. I am really hoping that women’s and children’s rights will be talked about as rightly being worth protecting, in the coming days.. because the backlash to this will be really furious. But the UK government just needs to stand firm. They are 100% right in this instance.

My prediction is that there will now be some political horsetrading. I reckon they will reopen the GRA to other reforms or something like that will happen.

The Scottish government will be desperate not to look outflanked and the Tories won’t want to be seen as illiberal on social issues, so the Uk gov will want to be seen to give the TRA lobby some concessions. We will need to stay very alert to the impact on women’s and children’s rights of whatever comes next. But for now, this is a big relief.

I think that's all they can do? The GRA is devolved.

Rishi is a clever guy and knows an awful lot about Sturgeon tactics. I think he knows very well what public opinions is and that if the bill is sorted out, it doesn't necessarily follow that those of us who vote Labour, or SNP will go back to doing so. The spell is broken

It’s undemocratic to push through a bill which affects rights of people in the whole of the U.K.

Thank goodness. Think Kemi Badenoch still needs to explain Cass Review and conversion therapy nonsense to him though. Or he could ask Boris to explain it as the child safeguarding penny finally dropped for him.

Wow!

I thought I read it in the Guardian but can't find it now - but basically under the current CoL crisis the quote was at best people think the govt are 'distracted' and at worst 'cruel' on this issue.

Focus group respondents present differently to poll respondents.

It was the Tories' own elections team that were advising the party not to pursue this issue in this way.

There are various Tories arguing against this approach with the Scottosh Parl.

But it looks certain to happen, so we will see how it plays out!

The fighting between Scottish/UK government and all the resultant news coverage that will bring will probably end up benefitting us.

The media isn't going to be able to skirt around this boxing match.

Think of all the debates that are going to have to be had. Actual evidence and legal reality is going to HAVE to be acknowledged.

The public TRA meltdown over the coming months is going to be glorious. The more deranged, the better.

Good! But do you know what’s behind all this don’t you , they will use it as an excuse to have another independence vote . This is what it’s all about . The uk overruling their decision.

india willoughby today was in an interview and said if a child of 16 was in a boys single sex school and identified as a girl they should move to a girls school and we are basically all transphobic for not agreeing . So with all the pressures that teenagers have we are now going to put this huge life changing decision on them at the same time . Without any sort of help for what might be troubling them.

it’s quite simply unbelievable that it’s been voted for in the first place.
And as much as Starmer is back tracking with word salad it was the SLP that voted for it .

Once again I come back to the “bus” approach to politics - no bus (aka political party) will get you to the exact place you need to go, so you get on the bus that takes you the closest to your destination - the Tories are far from perfect, but in this instance they are the right bus to get on.

Sunak really is not clever when it comes to politics, he has very poor political instincts. There is concern in the party that this is the wrong approach. He leads a factionalised party.

There is very little polling evidence that this issue is changing the way many people will vote. It is important not to assume other people think the way you do - the polling for the Tories is very weak at present.