Ash Regan’s decision to resign as Nicola Sturgeon’s community safety minister will not have been taken lightly. The Scottish parliament has today passed stage one of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, legislation championed by Sturgeon which will make it easier to access a gender recognition certificate, remove medical experts from the process and lower the applicable age to 16. Regan told Sturgeon in her resignation letter that ‘my conscience will not allow me to vote with the government’.
Regan was one of a handful of SNP politicians who signed an open letter in 2019 warning ministers: ‘Changing the definition of male and female is a matter of profound significance. It is not something we should rush.’ Supporters of Sturgeon’s plans say the reforms merely bring clarity to the law and will ensure the system is more responsive to the needs of transgender people. Opponents contend that conflating sex and gender will undermine everything from government statistics to service provision in health, social care and justice.
It is all but unheard of for an SNP minister to resign on a matter of principle, as is the suggestion that some of the government’s backbenchers will defy the whip and vote the other way this afternoon. Although this is a common occurrence at Westminster, the SNP’s iron discipline rarely tolerates dissent or even conscience-voting. It is an indication of how strongly some feel about this policy and how it has come about.
Mandy Rhodes, editor of Holyrood magazine and well-connected at the top of Scottish politics, recently lamented the outsized influence of lobby groups in forming public policy on these matters. She wrote:
One day, we may reasonably ask why MPs and MSPs, with a mandate to serve all, were persuaded by powerful lobbyists to eschew their responsibility for the many and only speak to and for the few.
Scottish ministers and civil servants are perceived by opponents of gender identity politics to have been institutionally captured by a regressive ideology posing as benign, progressive and tolerant. It is hard to see Sturgeon failing to progress her Bill, so it is likely to become law. The question is: at what cost?
A question her resignation raises is what this means for Kate Forbes
Ash Regan can expect to hear a lot of nasty things said about her for refusing to toe the line. While I hold no brief for her and disagree with her on independence and plenty else, there is no doubt what she has done is a sincere act of conscience. She was one of the rising stars of the 2016 intake, which saw a number of activists from the independence referendum enter Holyrood as SNP MSPs. Given the SNP leader is not quick to forgive and has thoroughly embraced the gender identity ideology, the ministerial post she has just quit may well be the last Regan holds as long as Sturgeon is First Minister.
A question her resignation raises is what this means for Kate Forbes, Sturgeon’s finance secretary and someone previously tipped as a potential leader of the SNP. Forbes, a practising Christian, signed the same 2019 letter and has been similarly vilified from within her party’s ranks. She is currently on maternity leave but there will be votes on further stages of this Bill down the line.
So Regan heads to the backbenches and the Gender Recognition Reform Bill moves forward. Since this debate is singularly vitriolic, it is unlikely her enemies — they don’t regard themselves as mere opponents — will feel any sympathy for her predicament. They ought to. She has spiked her own political career rather than do something she believes to be wrong. Even if you disagree with her conclusions, it should be possible to respect her integrity, just as those voting the other way are following their conscience. The difference is: Ash Regan has been forced to pay a high price for her principles.
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