Welsh Govt scrap the Self ID/Gender Quotas Bill

[WelshSerafina]

The Welsh Parliament (Senedd) yesterday debated and voted on the controversial Gender Quotas Bill.
They scrapped it!

it’s been a long and nasty battle and it was obvious they’d learnt nothing from Scotland, and were totally in thrall to the small number of lobby groups they are so fond of.

They were also ignoring the fact that they didn’t have the legislative competence to bring this in (as it meddled in equalities which are a reserved matter). There was a hope that a UK Labour Govt would let them go ahead, but it looks like they’ve been enlightened as to that, hence yesterday’s U turn.

Great article from WRN Wales here in advance of the vote https://nation.cymru/opinion/the-gender-quotas-bill-is-undemocratic-unfair-and-discriminatory/.
WRN have been great throughout, dragging this into the spotlight and they gave evidence at a Stage 1 hearing of the Bill too.

So no mandatory gender quotas anymore, the absolute stinker in this Bill being it permitted men to make a ‘gender statement’ and declare themselves to be a ‘woman’ on electoral lists.

Thank goodness for that, an unexpected relief.

Someone on the SNP thread made a comment about Scottish exceptionalism leading to terrible and arrogant policies, and I really feel it applies to Welsh government too.
They are so desperate to be different to England/Westminster, and convinced they are ‘the goodies’ that they never seem to stop to consider the wisdom of what they are doing.

This is good news!

Best news I've heard all year (well this month anyway).

Thanks to all of those fought back against this stupidity. 👏

The comments on the article from Nation Cymru show how much support there is in Wales for reality and science, if only the troughers would pay attention to that, and start 'educating themselves'.

Thanks for linking to yesterday’s Senedd vote.

Here’s a link to the previous thread.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5167035-welsh-govt-to-drop-senedd-candidates-gender-quotas-bill

It would have ended up in court no doubt, so less spend on legal fees.

Very good news. Added bonus: Plaid are fuming by the sound of it!😁

There's an interesting story that could be told about Plaid. Their urban members were always a bit of a pain, but most of the party knew that their strong suits were the Welsh language and rural economy. I would be amazed if many voters in Carmarthen are inspired by queer theory.

What happened to them? Were they just in thrall to what they thought was the SNP's winning formula?

You're right, I think, but the gender ideology lobby, possibly made up of the younger urban members, has a loud voice (my guess, anyway).

Was the gender quotas bill originally a Plaid legislative demand, rather than a Labour proposal? As part of Plaid’s Adam Price-negotiated deal (terminated early by his successor) to support Labour in Senedd votes on the budget and the legislative programme?

If it was, that could explain them being fuming.

What's been so intensely annoying to this Welsh resident about all this is that the Senedd and its predecessor, the Welsh Assembly, have always had a very good gender balance, reaching 50/50 at one point, though it fell back to 40/60 at the last Senedd election - a ratio only reached for the first time at Westminster after this election. It was such a transparent attempt to bring in self-ID by the back door. 😡

From what I’ve been told by disillusioned Plaid women, the self ID position of the party was sneaked through via a motion during Covid, supported by a small cadre, without anyone really knowing - until it had happened.
It’s very toxic in Plaid.
They have a bunch of fervent TRA Senedd members too, meaning no one feels they can speak out.

It was apparently a back office deal between Adam Price when previous Plaid leader, and Mark Drakeford.
Price wanted self ID, Drakeford wanted closed lists. Self ID was the price for Plaid not to push for single transferable votes.