Crisis! Outrage! Fury! It’s all kicking off in Scotland today, with much nationalist self-righteous anger at the impertinence, nay the audacity, of a Tory government daring to object to a law passed by Holyrood. Why, it’s nothing less than a fundamental breach of the founding principles of the Scotland Act on which the parliament was built – including of course, er, Section 35, the mechanism by which Westminster has blocked Sturgeon’s Gender Recognition Reform bill.
It is of course worth considering what exactly the GRR would mean – especially as it allows 16 year-olds to change their gender without parental consent. And that is exactly what LBC presenter Tom Swarbrick yesterday when he confronted Green MSP Maggie Chapman, a member of Holyrood’s Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee which scrutinised the bill. Swarbrick began by asking Chapman whether the legislation ought to be extended to those under the age of 16:
TS: ‘You said and I’m quoting you here it would be “appropriate and beneficial for children to have formal gender recognition.”
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