Politicians respond to the SC judgement

[ArabellaScott]

A thread to gather politicians' responses to yesterday's Supreme Court judgement.

1. Stella Creasy. She's rather unhelpfully posted a pdf, (and turned off replies), so archive below.

https://archive.ph/8T1Yl

https://x.com/stellacreasy/status/1912609872430133697

I’m concerned it hasn’t stopped there. Are they taking it further, and the unions pushing too.

That Unherd article is very good. Clear, accurate, to the point, appropriate in the language it uses to sound the alarm.

👏 Joan Smith

The Joan Smith article is a must read. Especially equating the backlash with domestic abuse - there’s overlap here with cults, and I wonder if the ideology is experienced as a cult for people trapped inside it, but experienced as abuse by those outside it. (After all, cults are usually desperate to hold themselves apart from society.) We see classic abusive behaviour evidenced in the court cases and tribunals and we know how families and employees have had to twist themselves into all kinds of appeasing shapes to keep the ideologues from attacking them.

I worry that the unions are the biggest threat to women's rights, at this time in the UK.

They have always been a bit 'after the revolution, love' but this is different they are actively working against women.

I wholly agree.

Today, Maggie Chapman is criticised for calling the SC 'bigoted'. Calls for her to resign.

www.scotsman.com/news/politics/green-msp-criticised-for-accusing-supreme-court-of-bigotry-prejudice-and-hatred-over-gender-ruling-5092355

Remember the time Tory MPs said the Supreme Court was enemy of the people?

She won't resign...

Do you believe the Labour party will now change the EA 2010 - can they do that ? I am actually thinking they will roll over on this issue
and women’s rights will be bulldozed. I am thinking this more now after seeing the comments from politicians.

I think there will be a nasty internal battle but ultimately some of the top people in Labour are all too aware about the looming threat of Reform and that would be a gift. So I'm cautiously hopeful they won't. We'll see I guess.

I really can’t see that they’d do that. It would be electoral suicide.

This Labour government may be appalling in just about every way, but the party’s not collectively so thick that they’d change equality legislation wholesale just to satisfy a few thousand trans protestors.

They would have to bring it before Parliament and it would have to go through Parliamentary process. It could be a private member’s bill or part of the government programme, so theoretically they could.

The problem with this course of action is, I think, that the SC judgement laid out comprehensively why a gender certificate definition of sex made the Act and therefore inequalities legislation incoherent, and it is difficult to see how this incoherence could be addressed. The SC judgement gives multiple examples of why revised legislation to include certified sex would not work (here, I don’t mean this is explicitly what they say but in working through what it would mean for the provisions if having a GRC was included in the definition of sex, they show the issues). I have stepped away from this issue over the last couple of days but I am not aware that anyone has seriously refuted the reasoning of the judgement rather than just railed/wailed against it.

The only way would be to remove sex completely as a protected characteristic much as the way Scotgov decided not to have misogyny in the hate crime legislation. I think doing that would be too divisive and risk alienating a significant section of voters.

This.

The issue will be a lack of commitment to single sex services and provision that the law needs.

If Labour try to legislate, it definitely won't be on the sly this time. It will be in the full glare of the media and the electorate are much more switched on now. Bring it on. Electoral suicide.

I agree. And the Supreme Court and all the Tribunal cases have given a handy list of questions to ask:

Would men be able to strip search women?
Do women need to share changing rooms with men?
Can lesbian groups exclude men?
Will women lose maternity protections?
Etc etc

Indeed and there are elections in a week's time. Starmer can't observe his vow of silence until then. Parliament are back this week.

Bridget Phillipson is due on the Today programme sometime after 8 (possibly the 8.10 major interview). I can’t listen then - could someone report back?

I'd bet the farm that Starmer won't try and change the law. A future successor might but Starmer hates talking about it and just wants it all to go away.
But I expect there will be many attempts to nullify it by inertia and subterfuge. It's tempting to look at the TRA demonstrations at the weekend and conclude they're all idiots who couldn't even change a lightbulb between them, but they have strategic thinkers too, which is why so many of our public institutions were and remain captured.

Thread on it!

Not been able to listen but seems govt welcome the judgement and are clear on the meaning.

Statement in the commons later today

Shift the narrative fgs onto creating nice welcoming all singing and dancing additional provisions and how lovely they will be. Trying to spend years undoing this to put women back under the control of men with problems isn't going to work well for anyone.

https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2025/04/22/keir-starmer-welcomes-much-needed-clarity-after-supreme-court-gender-ruling/

Pretty clear Keir.

Yes. They could probably jazz up the GRC, too. Maybe customisable options. Different flags as required.

Asked further whether this means he does not believe a trans woman is in fact a woman, the PM said: “A woman is an adult female, and the court has made that absolutely clear.”

Ouch.

I bet starmer is so relieved he has the Supreme Court judgement to hide behind, it means he doesn't have to have an opinion of his own.

I'll take it for what it is: acknowledgement of the highest court in the land by a man who has gone back on several core principles when it suits. He will need watching, feet to fire, and whilst I'll welcome people over the golden bridge, I can't trust or take seriously anyone who tried to bully or shame me into lying about material reality about anything else.

https://x.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1914610404002521471