DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Stand up to Sturgeon's dangerous gender law

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Stand up to Sturgeon’s dangerous gender law

Under SNP rule, Scotland has decayed. The economy is fragile. The country’s once-proud education system has gone backwards. The NHS is on life support. And drug deaths are spiralling.

But instead of concentrating on tackling those huge problems, Nicola Sturgeon has prioritised passing laws that make it easier for trans adults and children as young as 16 to change gender solely on the basis of self-identification.

True, these reforms allow the SNP leader to flaunt her woke credentials. But they also set her party, with its independence monomania, on a constitutional collision course with Westminster.

Of course, trans people should be treated with compassion. But this controversial and divisive law erodes the rights of women and girls, and threatens their safety.

Nicola Sturgeon has prioritised passing laws that make it easier for trans adults and children as young as 16 to change gender solely on the basis of self-identification

Self-ID makes it easier for male sexual predators to gain access to female-only spaces such as changing rooms. It also raises the prospect of troubled children rushing into life-altering sex changes – at an age when they can’t even legally buy alcohol.

This gender experiment is not just another depressing example of the growing disconnect between Holyrood and the average man and woman in the street.

The suspicion is the SNP has sought to contrive a political punch-up with Downing Street. The Government has already warned it could block the Bill, particularly over the troubling safety implications.

The SNP wants to depict the will of the Scottish Parliament being thwarted by an anti-democratic Westminster – with full independence the only antidote.

During the pandemic Ms Sturgeon was more concerned with political game-playing than what was right. This seems to be the case in spades again. The Government must not bottle standing up to her. The issues at stake are too important.

Unions’ self-sabotage

Are the trade unions wilfully reckless or are they simply blinded by hard-Left ideology?

Whatever the answer, their cynical strikes in pursuit of exorbitant pay awards are not just inflicting misery on the public.

The rabble-rousers are also hammering another nail into the coffin of the services that employ their members. By withdrawing their labour, the unions are making a bad situation worse. Because the Government will not buckle, militant Unison chiefs say there is ‘no option’ but for ambulance workers to take industrial action.

How ridiculous. Of course there’s an option! Stop being intransigent, accept the 5 per cent increase offered – which millions would relish – and get back to saving lives.

Striking will only intensify the catastrophic failures of the NHS, prompting ever more people to lose sympathy with it.

The Royal Mail, too, is fighting for its life, yet postal unions are picketing over pay. This has played havoc with Christmas mail, persuading fed-up customers to send emails or use nimbler courier firms.

And because the antediluvian RMT keeps bringing trains to a standstill, the public are deserting the railways in droves.

The anti-Tory unions may think they are carrying the banner of working class struggle. In fact, they are destroying their own industries – and the jobs of their members.

A flawed inquiry

The Commons privileges committee, which changed its rules so it could find Boris Johnson guilty of misleading MPs, even inadvertently, is blocking him from publishing his legal advice on Partygate. Why?

What is gained by suppressing Lord Pannick’s opinion on the legitimacy of the controversial probe? He is, after all, one of the country’s finest legal minds.

Many panel members loathe the ex-PM. Surely the public should be able to decide if Boris is being tried by a kangaroo court.

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