This Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection, probably to be staged in early October is going to be crucial for both SNP/Scottish Labour. Both parties would prefer not to talk about women. This is a chance to change the agenda. It could be the election will be decided by a few hundred votes that's how much Labour held it by in 2017 before it flipped back to SNP in 2019.
Remember the situation in Scotland is getting worse:
The shocking recent attack on a woman in Aberdeen for standing up for her rights which seems to be being covered up at rally organised by a Green member.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4853886-women-wont-wheesht-aberdeen?
The recent announcement on SPATH - Scottish government treatment protocol for trans is lacking safeguards. So more "legal" experiments on Scottish kids, which are banned in England.
Both main candidates hold disturbing genderist views:
Katy Loudon the SNP candidate the local Rutherglen party participated in the witch hunt of Joanne Cherry in 2021 actually breaching their own party rules.
"Local party councillors Janine Calikes and Katy Loudon were among those who re-Tweeted the local party branch's statement, while others accused the branch of breaching party rules by supporting groups publicly calling for another member to be disciplined."
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/in-your-area/lanarkshire/lanarkshire-snp-branch-call-transphobia-25498632
Michael Shanks The Labour candidate is defying Starmer on gender.
"In another split with the UK Labour leader, Mr Shanks said he backed the “de-medicalisation” of the process for changing legal gender and the “general principles” of the SNP’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill at Holyrood."
Labour by-election candidate clashes with Keir Starmer on gender self-ID
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/02/labour-margaret-ferrier-michael-shanks-keir-starmer-policy/
The candidates and voters need to be confronted by the implications of what is going on. With the Scottish/British media focused on the area this is a perfect chance to highlight all this and more. Especially we can force the division between Scottish Labour and UK Labour on gender more in the open and create more debate.
A recent survey on Rutherglen and Hamilton West showed that many people are sceptical about gender ideas:
https://britain.unherd.com/constituencies/rutherglen-and-hamilton-west/#tabs1-trans
I know we have plenty of Scots here hopefully some are local. Plenty of amazing resistance groups in Scotland. This thread is a brainstorm for information on how we could help and to monitor progress.
Advertise demos.
Maybe we could garden a leaflet print run?
Questions to ask candidates in hustings.
Are there any local stories we can use to illustrate the problems?