Senedd vote today on whether Welsh politicians have a sex

[fromorbit]

Merched Cymru summary:

Why the Senedd should reject flawed gender quota Bill
On Tuesday (16 July), the Senedd will be asked to approve the general principles of the Senedd Cymru (Electoral Candidate Lists) Bill. This Bill would impose a statutory ‘gender’ quota to the new proportional representation electoral system. Our response to the consultation is on our website.
To summarise our concerns:
The Bill is a blunt instrument that does nothing to address the underlying systemic barriers leading to women’s under-representation in politics.
The failure of the Bill to define the key terms ‘woman’ and ‘gender’ or to refer to the correct protected characteristic of ‘sex’ would effectively introduce a form of self-ID to Wales. This is undemocratic and would breach the Equality Act 2010.
The Bill is not within the legislative competence of the Senedd and will inevitably be subject to a costly, reputationally damaging legal challenge.

https://merchedcymru.wales/2024/07/14/merched-cymrus-response-to-the-senedds-proposed-gender-quota/

Wales Women's Rights Network have another great summary here:
https://x.com/WRNWales/status/1812832391271981479

Welsh Labour/Plaid are clearly dumb enough to do this. However luckily biology is real and so are lawyers so looking forward to gardening a humiliating defeat for them. This could be the start of an even bigger resistance movement in Wales when everyone realises how insane this stuff is.

Get your tools ready folks.

How much does 2 + 2 make, Welsh Politicians?

Did they learn nothing from scotlands failed attempts at exactly this

No they didn't learn. Which is especially weird as this is what an elected woman politician in Wales looks like - Jamie Wallis. Wales is the first nation to elect a trans MP. Doesn't matter he wasn't out at the time as he was always a woman.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/mar/30/tory-mp-jamie-wallis-trans-reveals-rape-ordeal

What happened to Wallis? Iirc the Tories got wiped out in Wales but he was standing down anyway...?

It'll be educational, seeing how Labour vote on this. If they vote against I wouldn't necessarily see it as a 'GC' win, they might argue the lesson of the GRR rather than biological sanity. If they vote for though, then there's no hope for them in Wales.

Vaughan Gethin might not survive the day, politically

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/welsh-labour-government-in-crisis-as-four-ministers-resign-qrgznxrw3

Sorry, forgot the archive link but the headline says it all.

Although the Senedd aren't up for re-election for, I think, around 18 months. They don't exist in a vacuum, changes in Westminster will definitely affect their behaviour.

This is the Sky version of Gething’s woes

https://news.sky.com/story/four-ministers-resign-from-welsh-government-and-say-first-minister-vaughan-gething-must-quit-13178583

Did the four ministers resign because of the trans issue or for some other reason (I note a reference to campaign donations)?

As a woman who grew up in the south wales valleys, which are mired in a decades long depression of generational unemployment, addiction and social problems, I'm disgusted by how little has been done to improve Wales since devolution.

Cardiff has been prettied up but the fact is that the country overall is in dire straits - high unemployment, too much public sector employment, no economic dynamism or entrepreneurialism, drugs and other diseases born of poverty...

We het a boost in University towns and cities but those students do not make a long term career in Wales

Public transport, health and infrastructure - dreadful.

I went to Cardiff recently and saw stickers on lampposts claling for terfs to be beheaded, I also saw the former main shopping street desolate apart from spice heads

Devolution has been dreadful for Wales, or Labour has...hard to pinpoint which exactly

Rant over!!

Jamie Wallis did not contest his seat in this election. He just, sort of, disappeared...Labour MP Chris Elmore elected. I emailed him with questions about his stance on single sex spaces, the Cass review etc before the election. No response.

Gething's resignation is not linked to these issues.

I'm wondering whether Starmer has had a word l

He's resigned

Arguably. Pressed post!
Start again - wondering whether Starmer had a hand in this resignation. His election speech was about returning to accountable, respectable politicians. Gething has taken donations from someone convicted of environmental offended, been caught out deleting conversations because they would be subject to a FOI request, has blamed and sacked someone for leaking the text which revealed this, even though he's no evidence of her guilt and she denies it (and this is in the public interest anyway, so should have been revealed). And he's lost the confidence of the govt.

I doubt it's anything to do with trans issues. He's too far from reality to care how out of step the twaw position is with the public.

Yes, it's BBC 'breaking'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cleyl8ln66et

Gething sounds like he's incompetent and hypocritical on multiple fronts.

His replacement is likely to be Jeremy Miles who is fully TWAW I believe, unless there is an election and someone else steps in. Gething has been arrogant and in his attitude and with some dodgy financial donations to his campaign and and a questionable sacking ( though she is no great loss imo) he needed to go.

Several 'ands' too many in my post there!

There will be a lot of “don’t knows”

Wales Women's Rights Network are on the case. Great work from them on setting out objections to this bill. Of course this is getting no coverage on local news because of the resignation.

Nation Cymru did a piece on it yesterday, it wasn't a very good article but at least they gave the fight some publicity.

Gender critical groups urge rejection of Senedd candidates Bill (nation.cymru)

It was reported yesterday that the vote had been delayed until 2030
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw4ywzzg02go

I think Wallis went looking for a safe seat somewhere else, but doesn't appear that he got selected, so just stood down as an MP completely.

This is a link to Jane Hutt’s 10th July reply to the scrutiny committee in advance of the 16th July debate.

https://business.senedd.wales/documents/s152352/Response%20from%20the%20Trefnydd%20and%20Chief%20Whip%20-%20Stage%201%20Report%20-%2010%20July%202024.pdf

Which you can find on this page.

https://business.senedd.wales/mgIssueHistoryHome.aspx?IId=42338

It’s not the vote which will be delayed. Welsh Labour Ministers are continuing with taking the Bill through the Senedd. It will become an Act (if the Senedd votes it through) but the Act will only come into force for the 2030 elections, not for the 2026 elections.

Here’s what her letter says:

Noted
As Member in Charge, I recognise the concerns which have been raised during Stage 1 scrutiny relating to the potential for disruption to the 2026 election as a result of the risk of legal challenges to both the primary and secondary legislation. While steps have already been taken to manage potential risks to the 2026 election identified by earlier reports by bringing forward these measures in a separate Senedd Reform Bill, I accept that further steps should now be taken to mitigate risks to the 2026 election in light of the committees’ concerns set out in their Stage 1 reports.

In order to protect the integrity of the 2026 Senedd election, including the implementation of the Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Act, the Senedd Cymru (Electoral Candidate Lists) Bill will be implemented in time for the scheduled 2030 Senedd election. This will ensure that the legislation is implemented in an orderly way and gives time for any potential legal challenges to the legislation to be resolved well in advance of the election.

I will be bringing forward an amendment to the Bill to take commencement out of the hands of the Welsh Ministers and ensure that the Bill’s provisions (subject to Royal Assent) are commenced automatically and take effect for the scheduled 2030 Senedd election.

Please see also my response to recommendations 2, 3 and 15 of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution committee report.

It’s not the vote which will be delayed. Welsh Labour Ministers are continuing with taking the Bill through the Senedd. It will become an Act (if the Senedd votes it through) but the Act will only come into force for the 2030 elections, not for the 2026 elections.

Thanks - I saw this late last night and obviously didn't read it properly.

It’s not that you didn’t read it properly. The article wasn’t very clear. That’s why I tried to find out what had actually happened, by searching the Senedd website, because it wasn’t obvious from the article.

Anyway they must be confident that the new Labour UK Government will sort out the legal powers to allow this to go ahead before 2030 without the risk of a legal challenge like the one the SNP / Scottish Parliament faced.

Jane Hutt's comments from that article:

She said it will be up to individual candidates and political parties to ensure that statements made about gender are accurate.

Adding that "candidates and their parties run the risk of reputational damage and legal challenge in the event of a false gender statement being made".

How do you "ensure that statements made about gender are accurate" if people just choose their own gender?

And how can there be a "legal challenge in the event of a false gender statement being made" if people just choose their own gender?

I don't think she understands what self ID means.