SNP gender reforms will ‘almost certainly’ be revived if Sir Keir Starmer wins the keys to Downing Street, Rishi Sunak has warned.
The Prime Minister claimed in an interview with the Mail that key protections for women, including the block on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, will unravel if Labour wins the election.
He also pleaded with voters not to let ‘frustrations’ with his party lead to them switching to rivals such as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK – and he warned that this would risk letting the SNP ‘off the hook’.
His comments came during a visit to Edinburgh to launch the Scottish Conservatives’ manifesto, where he said the SNP cannot be trusted to stand up for oil and gas jobs. At the weekend, First Minister John Swinney said the next UK Government should reverse the decision by Scottish Secretary Alister Jack to use ‘section 35’ powers to block the gender Bill from gaining Royal assent.
Asked if he felt there was a risk that the legislation, which proposed removing the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria when obtaining a gender recognition certificate and lowering the minimum age for applicants to 16, would return under a Labour government, Mr Sunak said: ‘That is a very real risk.
‘It is more than a risk, it is almost certainly what would happen under a future Labour government. They haven’t matched our commitment to ensure that sex means biological sex in the Equalities Act, so that we can protect women’s spaces and their access to single sex services.
‘And actually the Labour Party proposals that we’ve seen today unravel all the protections in the current system, which is designed to protect women and girls, and their changes would create more loopholes from bad faith actors.
‘Labour have never understood or cared about this issue, or the vulnerable women impacted by their policy.’
He added: ‘You can expect that all they would do is reverse the strong progress we’ve made on this issue, where it is the Scottish Conservatives and the Conservative Party that has stood up to that gender recognition reform very strongly.
‘And if we are re-elected we will go further to make sure that sex means biological sex when it comes to the Equalities Act.
‘All of these protections will be unravelled under a future Labour government while the SNP, as we know, are keen to do that.’ In the interview with the Mail, Mr Sunak pleaded with voters not to let their ‘frustrations’ lead to them placing votes which cost them thousands of pounds in extra taxes under a Labour government.
As he launched the Scottish Conservatives’ manifesto, Mr Sunak also warned voters that backing Reform UK would benefit the SNP.
He said: ‘Voting Reform risks letting the Nationalists off the hook.
‘Don’t let your frustration allow the SNP to keep the constitutional debate going.
‘Voting Reform risks letting the SNP slip in through the back door.
‘And they are not on the side of who you think they are. Reform are standing candidates here in Scotland that are pro-independence and anti-monarchy. And you all heard what Nigel Farage said about Ukraine. That plays into Putin’s hands. That kind of appeasement is dangerous for Britain’s security… So if you want to beat the SNP, and stand up for the UK, then you have to vote Scottish Conservative.’
He also accused the SNP of having ‘let down Scotland’, saying their independence ‘obsession’ means they have ‘neglected everything else’.
He pledged that a vote for the Scottish Tories ‘is a vote to put this issue to bed, to move past these tired and stale arguments and to go forward united and together’.
Mr Sunak also said July 4 is Scotland’s chance to ‘end the decade of division’ and ‘put independence on the backburner for a generation’.
He added: ‘But that can only happen if the SNP are routed, if they do not just lose some seats but the SNP lose big – and voting Scottish Conservative is the only way to ensure that happens.’
He said Labour ‘would rather virtue signal to eco zealots’ on North Sea development than protect jobs, and claimed people ‘can’t trust the SNP to stand up for the future of oil and gas’.
During a visit to Scotland last week, Sir Keir insisted a Labour government would not lift the block on the SNP’s gender reforms. He said: ‘No, there would be no change of position on that.
‘I think there’s a lot to learn about gender self-ID from the way in which it’s been dealt with here in Scotland, which is why we’ve got a different proposition in our manifesto.’
At the weekend, Harry Potter author JK Rowling said Labour had ‘abandoned’ her and others campaigning on women’s rights.
But yesterday, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the party was ‘not going to be changing anything around biological sex, so the Equality Act stands and the protection of single-sex spaces, based on biological sex, will absolutely stay’.
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