Gender wars: the Union’s new battle line

When Rishi Sunak had dinner with Nicola Sturgeon last week, the idea was to show he was interested in a friendly relationship: a ‘constructive dialogue’. Liz Truss had dismissed Sturgeon as an ‘attention seeker’ who was ‘best ignored’, but Sunak preferred a more positive approach. He was keen to pose for pictures afterwards. This new friendship lasted four days.

Sturgeon is now accusing Sunak of ‘a full-frontal attack on the democratically elected Scottish parliament’ because he has become the first Prime Minister in history to veto a bill passed there – the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. Sturgeon has put on a virtuoso performance of grievance. It’s ‘an outrage’, she says, and is using ‘one of the most marginalised groups in society’ as a ‘political weapon’. She has urged Scots of all parties to unite against Sunak’s diktat and promised to take the fight all the way to the Supreme Court.

Sturgeon may be sincere in her concern for transgender people, but she is first and foremost a Scottish Nationalist dedicated to breaking up the United Kingdom. The bill is in part a provocation, designed to portray the UK Tories as anti-Scottish bigots – and Scotland as being at the leading edge of progressive legislation in the UK.

Sunak thought long and hard before blocking the bill. He knew that it could revive the image of the Tories as the ‘nasty party’. The author of that phrase, Theresa May, advised Sunak to stand aside, to go with the flow. Don’t allow the Nats to paint the Conservatives as transphobic, she advised. Some Unionists (and Tory MSPs) went further, urging Sunak not to play into Sturgeon’s hands and give her the fight she seeks.

But Sunak was persuaded by the government legal advisers and two powerful ministers: Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, and equalities minister Kemi Badenoch.