GRR, Democracy or a slap on the Puss – Have the English colonial Government fired the nuclear option in colonial Scotland? Our English colonial government via our Scottish Governor General Alister Jack will take the legal steps to block the controversial Scottish bill designed to make it easier for transgender people to change their legal (birth) gender. Our Colonial First Manager Nikola Sturgeon has called the move a “full-frontal attack” on the Scottish Parliament and vowed to oppose it. She said the Scottish ministers would “defend” the bill, warning if the veto succeeded it would be the “first of many”.
While I think she plays the colonial game well this might be the very issue that actually enthuses her and gets her actually thinking about independence seriously for a change.
Now there will be a million words written and spoken today by new media, carrot eaters, politicians, the colonial English media and the list goes on. Now I won’t imagine for one moment that anything I write will add anything worthy to the debate, it is just an opinion and mine at the end of the day.
My issue with the GRR Bill is basically about the issue that it ignores women’s voices and concerns, especially about safety. I think there are valid arguments that should have been debated about women-only spaces, female sports, and support around making such a life-changing decision like transition. Not so much around the 16-year-old thing per se as we allow 16 years olds to vote, marry, and join the army, doing this via self-ID without adequate support for myself appears to be a huge risk for people facing transgender issues in their lives, their lives are difficult enough without removing the few support protections which are there now.
We then come to democracy, democracy matters. I do not support the GRR Bill as it stands as I have made clear. but I do support the right of the elected Scottish Parliament to vote for a change of law, even terrible law such as this.
Now while there are many who are welcoming our colonial masters saying they will stop GRR receiving Royal Assent (disgusting and undemocratic as that is alone) and feel that this will help the cause of the yes movement I am not so sure it will, as you know I think it truly is amazing how much shit Scots can eat at any one time. We have had Brexit, Internal Market Bill, and the Supreme Court decision, now is not the time twice, and now this. Is this the huge slap on the PUSS that many believe? Is it enough to galvanize the wider yes movement and unify that movement, I don’t think it is enough but it maybe won’t hurt our cause and it does help to re-affirm our colonial status.
It might even get the trans warriors, who some of us have been on the other end of their bilge on social media more focussed on independence, if they are as passionate about that as they are about trans issues or CIS issues, then it won’t hurt I suppose. It could all have been handled so differently though if we had a Scottish Government and First Manager who was not in fact a media hogger and reactionary on the issues that grab her attention, and which she can promote herself in.
Not so long ago we were going to have Citizen Assemblies to look at issues in Scotland, and they were much lauded. Of course, the one we did get was not allowed to look at the issue of independence for fear of upsetting our colonial masters and appeasing the unionists in Scotland but that is the Sturgeon way.
A Citizen Assembly around GRR would have been the best way to inform the whole debate, it would have allowed for a cross-section of Scotland to safely debate the issue and raise the various concerns across the generations as we know that young people are not so much phased by GRR as older people are.
Involving people in decision-making for myself is vital to building the Scotland many of us want to see and live in, this is just yet another failure that can be laid at Sturgeon’s door and that of the Scottish Government / Parliament. We are further away in our democracy every day both within Scotland and within our colonial status in what is an increasingly right-wing and facist (United Kingdom) England colonial rule.
The decision to stop GRR by our colonial masters highlights our lack of democracy, our inept Scottish Government led by Nikola ‘ me me me’ Sturgeon, it is anti-democratic, is a huge slap on the puss, but I am still not convinced it will forward the yes cause, time will tell.
grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com 
Sturgeon our very own Trojan horse and the enemy within. Nothing is as it seems in UK.Ok, or the sham, pretend independence party.
Alastair
I agree, I do sadly think that she has been playing everyone all along. I do think it is about her ego and her legacy to a degree. She has been a failure and will be remembered as such, sadly she has all but destroyed the independence movement along the way and that is probably something that should never be forgiven.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Sorry I’m ignoring this GRR, but the SNP and its leader have a bloody check. Every mandate given has been on the promise of holding a Indy ref and every single election has been kicked down the road for an other Indy mandate, if where going to talk about democracy then we need to starting stating the SNP are the real democracy deniers and taken every single Scot for granted. Nicola Sturgeon is the only leader in the UK who can boost that she been a complete failure at everything she touches and hasn’t delivered a single promise including this GRR.
100%YES
Sturgeon is a failure, there is no doubt about that, and more would see it for what it is if they would just open their eyes. She was left a fantastic platform to build and strengthen a movement for real change, Covid is not an excuse for this failure in any way. She took an amazing legacy of party membership, activists, and money and has blown the lot in a matter of years while splitting her party and all but destroying the movement, that is her legacy and she should be ashamed.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
Whilst the UK government’s S35 ‘override’ on the GRRB has riled Sturgeon and the trans warriors the population at large will probably be relieved.
After all we know from opinion polling that self-id is supported by maybe only 20% of people in Scotland whilst two-thirds believe that the GRRB increases risks for women and girls.
Despite UK government interference with the workings of the Scottish Parliament are common folk really prepared to die in a ditch for this?
I’d say the answer to that is ‘not likely, mate’.
duncanio
Most people won’t care I agree, they have far more pressing problems right now like trying to keep warm. I do think it is a slap in the puss to our democracy but again not much will come from it other than yet another very expensive court case that will keep the lawyers fed and warm. Sturgeon has been an abject failure for Scotland, the worst First Manager in my opinion that Scotland has had to endure. I am not all fussed about self-ID when I think about it other than the issues I have identified need to be addressed and some form of common ground found with women and girls who have valid concerns.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
This’ll take the Yes cause backwards after alienating the vital 51% adult human female demographic. Funny how refusal of an independence referendum by WM is met with a shrug by Sturgeon, but this sees her spitting and hissing like a Highland wildcat defending her kittens.
We hear it’s an “affront to democracy” and yet they were happy enough to ignore all the negative responses they got when doing consultations. “Not valid” was the term I believe.
‘kin hell, with everything that’s going on that she could be concerning herself with, WTF is that wee harridan Sturgeon getting her drawers in a twist over this fkin nonsense for? Trans folk already have all the rights they could need. Here’s a better idea- issue a GRC to someone who’s already made arrangements to get their bits chopped off. That way there can be no doubt about their commitment. Oh, and make all those that voted for this criminally accountable in case anything that they assure us won’t happen actually happens.
Brexit? Cost of living crisis? Who cares eh?
Dave
As I have noted in the past I don’t have much issue with transgender and self-id other than the issues that I have identified and feel need to be addressed. I do think this is a slap in the face to our democracy or lack of, but if it were any other issue I don’t think Sturgeon would give a crap as it appears she is basing her legacy of failure on GRR. Her governance has been abject, she has not only destroyed the SNP but the wider movement for independence, probably setting it back beyond my life time. We are stuck in this colonial status for years to come, I have pretty much accepted that now. The best I can hope for is that Alba/ISP make an impact as far as getting people elected but that appears sadly far off as well.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Hi Grumpy, you lay it out well, the place we are at now. However, if we just stop saying that there are ‘trans’ people and start saying that there are people who have problems with their bodies, we will eradicate this c**p tomorrow. There are no ‘trans’ people. There are middle-aged men caught like flies in a spider’s web because they are autogynephiles. They have a sexual paraphilia. That is the beginning and end of their problem, and they can dress how they like, grow their hair and nobody’s gives a fig. We care when they try to gain access to female spaces and rights on the pretext of being ‘women’. The vast majority are middle-aged, middle-class, privileged heterosexual men who have wives and children and a decent career.
We have young women who are trapped in yet another social contagion because of this baloney which is Queer Theory and which has linked the completely fictitious ‘trans’ nonsense dreamt up by academics and post modernist philosophers without an original thought in their heads – and usually a paraphilia in the place of original thought. It is a crime that these young girls are being used and abused, mutilated and poisoned in order to shore up the total fallacy of ‘trans’.
Last, but not least – certainly not least – we have the children, the two and three-year-olds who absolutely know they are ‘trans’. The utter absurdity of this rubbish is just pipped by the stupidity of the adults around them who, instead of protecting them, are wittering on about ‘trans’. No, they are children who will grow up to be critical thinkers if they are not bent out of shape by narcissists, psychos, parents with Munchausen’s-by-proxy and sundry ‘professionals’ who are brainwashing them. We are letting these pieces of evil destroy our children.
Sorry to rant, Grumpy, but there are no ‘true trans’, no ‘trans’ anything or anybody, just deluded, deranged or otherwise mentally-ill people are being sucked into a system that is designed to create identity victimhood everywhere we look. This is not about independence and the English government stepping in to thwart it. What has this sham of a Scottish government done in over eight years to advance independence? Nothing. Does anyone seriously believe that they have set up this ‘trap’ for Westminster, over the mutilated bodies of our young? Over the removal of rights for our female population? Really? Anyone who does must be even more deluded than the most deluded faux ‘trans’. Anyone who would even contemplate that needs to see a psychiatrist.
lorncal
Rant away, I won’t pretend to understand the whole trans issue other than what I have laid out my understanding to be as it is. I don’t have a huge issue with the trans issue other than the issues I have laid out. My daughter who is 24 is far more relaxed about the concerns than my understanding of them but that does not excuse the blatant ignoring of the women and girls who have raised valid concerns. As far as Sturgeon goes, she is a failure. Has been from pretty much the start of her rule. She has a huge chip on her shoulder, which has destroyed the SNP and the yes movement. She won’t ever live up to Alex Salmond and his achievements and that on the face of it appears to be a real issue for her but she has let us all down, on top of some of the worse governance that would even make Tories proud.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
My problem with GRRB is not the 16 as opposed to 18 bit either. It’s the removal of a medical diagnosis bit – the self identity aspect. We should not be creating legal fictions that humans can change sex that are available to anybody that feels like it, with no safeguarding or medical condition you are “alleviating.”
People can identify how they like, I don’t give a monkeys. But women’s safe spaces which fought for for years and only comparatively recently obtained, should not become mixed sex to appease any male that fancies access, even predatory ones. Transexuals who had their male bits removed and had been assessed as no danger to themselves or others, we’ve had an accommodation with for years; no problem. It can’t be easy for them. But no penises in women’s spaces where we are vulnerable and/or at risk.
As for the section 35, Westminster had no choice. If the bill is ultra vires an many lawyers are saying it is, then it must be denied Royal Assent. If we don’t like that then we should be making getting independence our first priority then shouldn’t we. Sorry if that affects your gravy train posts MPs and MSPs. Actually not sorry at all. You weren’t elected to enrich yourselves.
PP
I can’t add anything to what you have said, Sturgeon knew that our colonial English Parliament would challenge this or stop it. She didn’t do this for anything around independence but her own ego and her perceived legacy which is more of failure every day. She lives in the shadow of Salmond, she hates it. She is a poor First Manager and not even close to Salmond on his worst day, she hates it. She has destroyed the SNP as a movement, she is not all that bothered about that. Her legacy is abject failure and she will have my contempt for that.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Well said Bruce. Note: It’s Nicola with a ‘c’ not a ‘k’.
Dave
Thanks, the ‘K’ is me being mean as in old Soviet Union rule.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
The bill itself was whipped. The policy never put to the SNP members at conference and the passage through the parliament in my opinion shamed the parliament. A public consultation (in part public consultations are used to gauge where public opinion lies) was open to anyone from around the world and the results never made public! There was no attempt to negotitate between the conflict of rights between different groups. Women’s rights and child safeguarding concerns were never acknowledged. Scottish government funded groups were given easy access to the committee while committee members were denied the opportunity to hear from those who believed their rights would be affected by what was being proposed.
This has damaged the parliament.
I have heard people say that the FM did this deliberately, for publicity, to confuse Scottish voters and lead them to think that their parliament was under attack with the aim of advancing the cause of independence.
if that was the ultimate aim why not legislate for a referendum and give Westminster the opportunity to strike that down?
This is an example of dishonest politics and bad lawmaking. Ideology above democracy. The GRR bill proceeded in an underhand way from the very start. The people behind it did not care who it might have hurt.
GM
I think they played down the consultation and I also agree that MSPs misled the public on the bill. There should have been a citizen’s assembly to discuss the issue and see if common ground could be found but Sturgeon is a coward surrounded by other cowards in all the other parties in the main. I blame Sturgeon, the parties, and us the voters for the state of our Parliament. We have allowed standards across the board to fall significantly by electing clowns with little or no talent, careerists in it for the money, we are pretty much screwed if we don’t sort it out at the ballot box, and members of all parties grow a pair and wrestle back control from the likes of Sturgeon, etc.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
As someone who has supported Scottish independence all of their life I am getting to the point where I am starting to believe will it make one bit of difference to the lives of ordinary people. What is the difference between corrupt, useless, grifting English politicians screwing us or our own, home bred s***holes doing the same. Look at the policies of all the parties, they are all basically the same, tinker with the system that milks us for every penny they can get. Look around the western world – it’s the same- support war mongering NATO and the US empire whilst letting your own people starve and freeze to death. Sturgeon and her nuSNP are a bunch of neo liberal, trans ideologist incompetents that has shown how easy it is to lead the Scottish people up the garden path. Would it be any different in an independent Scotland for another group of chancers? Where is the vision of a different Scotland? Sadly I don’t see any independence party with the policies to make that happen.
nacnud6452
Don’t disagree but we can’t give up or we might as well just curl up and die. There has to be a tipping point somewhere, not just in Scotland but the world. We are being controlled by the right now, the politicians are controlled by the wealthy and corporations, and are pretty much consumed by their own greed and cowardice in the main. It is a sad state of affairs. I have also pretty much given up on independence now to be honest and the best I can hope for is good governance somewhere down the line and making it as difficult as I can via the blog and any other means.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce