WATCH: Highland MSP blasts UK government bid to black gender reform
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Highland MSP Emma Roddick has said the Scottish electorate should be outraged at the UK government’s bid to block the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill as it is “an attack on devolution and on democracy itself.”
Ms Roddick has been on a host of national broadcast media today expressing her anger at the UK government’s unprecedented move to overrule the bill through a Section 35 order.
The Bill was one of the most divisive pieces of proposed legislation ever to come before Holyrood and was subject to hundreds of hours of debate and scrutiny before being passed with a two-thirds majority.
It provoked one of the largest rebellions since the SNP took power with Inverness and Nairn MSP Fergus voting against the Bill because he feared sexual predators could abuse it to access women-only spaces.
Ms Roddick said: “This is an unprecedented and outrageous action from the UK government. When people vote in Scottish Parliament elections, however they choose to vote, they believe they are voting for the people who will make decisions on devolved issues on their behalf.
“We spent hours upon hours debating this bill, which had hundreds of amendments, to ensure that we got it right. Amendments were accepted by the Scottish Government from every party, and MSPs from every party supported the bill in the end.
“The fact that it is perfectly possible for a Tory Government, that Scotland did not vote for, to step in and overrule a two-thirds majority in the Scottish Parliament should really scare and anger people.
“For me, this is a clear demonstration of how weak devolution is, how limited we are, and ultimately how broken this union is.”
