- Sir Keir said he had not seen anything that would threaten single-sex spaces in the Bill.
- Labor has called on the government to urgently share its legal advice with them.
- The government said the Scottish reform would threaten equality laws in the UK.
- Plans to use Article 35 law to veto Scottish Parliament change
Sir Keir Starmer has sided with Nicola Sturgeon on radical gender reforms in Scotland.
He opposes Westminster using its final veto to block the SNP government’s controversial plan to allow people as young as 16 to change their legal sex.
The Labor leader does not believe that gender-differentiated spaces are put at risk by making it easier for anyone to change sex, and his spokesperson Fail to condemn party MPs who attacked a female colleague while she was defending women’s rights in a heated debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday..
Ministers say they were forced to take the unprecedented step of vetoing legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament because the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill would have had a “serious adverse impact” on gender equality laws. all over the UK.
The new reform of Nicola Sturgeon’s government would allow people up to 16 years old to legally change their gender
Sir Keir’s spokesman said the UK and Scottish governments could have resolved the “totally unnecessary” row before the unprecedented Section 35 veto was issued and he could not point to anything in the Scottish reforms that posed a threat. for spaces differentiated by sex.
In a further blow to the Scottish First Minister, former Supreme Court judge Lord Hope said yesterday that the Government’s reasons were “devastating” and that Miss Sturgeon’s chances of winning a legal challenge were “very low”.
But Sir Keir’s spokesman said the UK and Scottish governments could have resolved the “totally unnecessary” dispute before the unprecedented Section 35 veto was issued and could point to nothing in the Scottish reforms that posed a threat. for spaces differentiated by sex.
“That’s why we want to look at the legal advice to see if there is anything the Government is saying that we don’t know why they are using this unprecedented measure of using the Section 35 mechanism to block the legislation,” he said. .
Members of the Labor Party and the SNP were described as “shouting” at gender-critical Labor MP Rosie Duffield during a heated debate on the issue in the House of Commons on Tuesday.
The spokesperson said on Twitter that there would be only “minimal” difficulties in managing benefits for people registered as one sex in Scotland and the other in England, and that the “vast majority” of the expected 500 new applications for a certificate of gender recognition would be resolved genuine.
He admitted that single-sex groups would not be allowed to refuse entry to anyone with a gender recognition certificate, but said that was already the case.
The spokesman said his Labor peer Lord Falconer, a former Lord Chancellor close to Sir Keir, had also rejected the Government’s objections.
In Tuesday’s Commons debate, Labor MPs criticized their colleague Rosie Duffield for suggesting that allowing biological males into single-sex spaces such as “domestic violence sites, changing rooms and prisons” would have “serious repercussions for women”.
Asked whether Sir Keir found it acceptable to be criticized, his spokesman said: “There is always intense debate in the Commons, but that should never cross the line into abuse.” If a member feels that has happened, then it is clearly not right.’
Senior Labor figure Emily Thornberry denied that MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle had shouted at Miss Duffield. “I think I heard Lloyd say, ‘Oh, Rosie, that’s not right,’ but I don’t think that’s shouting at someone,” she told Times Radio.
Miss Duffield herself said yesterday that the party leadership did not support her because of the abuse. “I haven’t heard from Keir,” she said. “People in the Shadow Cabinet don’t come up to me and ask if I’m okay or what they can do and they don’t discuss this issue with me,” she told GB News.
Russell-Moyle apologized for the “tone” of his comments to a Conservative MP whom he had accused of transphobia, but did not apologize to Miss Duffield.