Trans activists will regret picking on Joanna Cherry

Another feminist getting no-platformed in Scotland is hardly news. Poets, writers, students, academics, comedians and, of course, film-makers have become inured to being cancelled north of the border if they stray from the dogma that trans women are women. Normally this kind of thing happens in the shadows, without publicity. People just find, like the poet Jenny Lindsay, that their livelihood disappears. Cancellation is the standard operating procedure for the handful of trans activists who seem to have a stranglehold on Scottish cultural life and education institutions. But this time they took on someone willing to fight back.

The SNP MP for Edinburgh Central, Joanna Cherry, refused to go quietly when the Stand Comedy Club, which was founded by the SNP MP for Edinburgh East, Tommy Sheppard, cancelled her booking at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She was due to appear at the popular venue as part of an ‘In Conversation’ series, which included the film director, Ken Loach, and Jeremy Corbyn. Some members of staff apparently objected to her well-known ‘gender critical’ opposition to Self-ID and refused to work on the show, so the Stand cancelled the engagement.

It seems the ‘no debate’ omerta is finally weakening

Cherry is a prominent lesbian politician. She is also a barrister and chairs Westminster’s human rights committee, so she knows a bit about the law. Cherry has suggested that the cancellation of her show is a violation of the Equality Act. ‘It’s clearly a case of unlawful discrimination,’ she says, ‘and the Stand needs to think if that is something it really wants to do’.

In a remarkable intervention, the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, Roddy Dunlop KC, agreed and tweeted: