Self-ID: the hill Humza's chosen to die on

Why has the Scottish Government launched a futile defence of a deeply flawed and unpopular Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill?

I’d half expected Humza Yousaf to back down at the last minute over the challenge to the S35 veto on the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. The politics are all against it. The legislation to allow 16 year olds to change legal sex by declaration without any medical intervention is hugely unpopular with voters. Only 20% according to Panelbase believe it is worth the time and money trying to overturn the block on the bill applied by the Scottish Secretary Alister Jack in January.

Why revive all the lurid arguments about whether women can have penises? And the policy, Self-ID, which led to natal male sex offenders being placed in women's prisons? Is the Bute House coalition agreement with the Scottish Green Party so important that he would risk reopening the deep divisions in the SNP over this step? Challenging the Section 35 Order on the GRR Bill was opposed by both his rivals in the leadership campaign, and they represent at least half the party membership.

There are so many other priorities for the new First Minister, not least sorting out the internal discombobulation of the SNP following the arrest and release of its Chief Executive, Peter Murrell, and the revelations about party finances, which now appear to extend to the pointless purchase of a £100,000 motor home. The Scottish people want the full energies of the Scottish parliament to be focussed on the appalling state of the health service, the cost of living crisis and education. According to Panelbase in the Times, only 4% of Scots think gender recognition reform should be one of Humza Yousaf's main priorities.

So why is the first action of the new First Minister of Scotland to mount a judicial review which is almost certain to end with another humiliating rebuff from the UK Supreme Court, assuming it ever gets there? Is there logic to Humza's madness? Read on.