The first thing to say is that the argument between the Scottish government and the British government over the former’s gender recognition reforms is not about trans people. The broad principles of those legislative changes are not the chief issue, whether one happens to support them or not.
The second thing to note is that this ought not to be a constitutional crisis. Invoking a provision of the Scotland Act which established the Scottish parliament is not an ‘assault’ on that legislature. Granted, no previous bill has been subject to a Section 35 order of the kind now invoked by Alister Jack, the Secretary of State for Scotland. Granted, too, it might be preferable if such legislative tensions – of a sort that are an all-but-inevitable consequence of a multi-tiered constitution – were refereed by an established and clearly-understood process, freed from political grandstanding and special pleading.
This ought not to be a constitutional crisis
Nevertheless, we are where we are.
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