August 9, 2023 - 10:00am
Does the SNP approve of abusing women? Opponents of the party’s extreme views on transgender rights have long highlighted the poor quality of debate in Scotland, but remarks by a leading SNP politician provide dramatic evidence of a hostile climate towards outspoken women. Mhairi Black, Deputy Leader of the party at Westminster, has dismissed women who disagree with her views on transgender rights as “50-year-old Karens”.
Speaking at the Edinburgh Fringe, she compared feminists who oppose gender ideology to “white supremacists”, also repeating the slur that opposition to the demands of trans activists is financed by the religious Right. “When you start tracing it back, the money always links back to fundamental Christian groups in America, Baptist groups, anti-abortion organisations,” she claimed.
This is a smear, and one which exposes the degradation of political discourse in Scotland, where the SNP’s rage at being frustrated in its attempt to pass controversial legislation allowing self-ID appears to have driven some members of the party beyond rational thought.
With honourable exceptions such as Black’s Westminster colleague Joanna Cherry, the SNP’s behaviour has come to resemble that of a religious sect. Either you agree that human beings can change sex, and should be allowed to do so legally even if they have been charged with rape, or you are beyond the pale — a “bad actor”, to quote Black.
A belief in biological sex is now heresy in nationalist circles. Black made one concession, acknowledging that people should be allowed to hold different views from herself, but only as long as they don’t express them. Asked whether someone with a different philosophical position on gender could be “thoroughly decent”, she said to applause, “if you keep it to yourself, aye”.
Black’s remarks were apparently delivered without irony, even though she has blamed a “toxic” culture at Westminster for damaging her mental and physical health. She is standing down as an MP at the next general election after being elected at the age of 20 in 2015. Now 28, she is evidently one of those people who think the name “Karen” is an insult — and that reaching 50 is a poor lifestyle choice.
One of her predecessors as deputy leader at Westminster, Kirsty Blackman, caused hilarity during a debate on the 2010 Equality Act earlier this year when she told MPs she did not have a clue what her chromosomes are. “I have a fair idea of what my genitals look like and how they compare with how other people’s look,” she added, helpfully.
Some observers might think it is a bit rich for a party represented by such confused and incoherent people to pass judgement on the rest of us. But it is much worse than that. The SNP now promotes magical thinking, expecting everyone to go along with its belief that men can become women simply by saying so. It’s telling that Black singled out older women for her vile comments, recycling centuries of prejudice that allowed them to be characterised as witches.
This is pure misogyny, expressed in language designed to silence and shame women who hold perfectly rational views. A feminist organisation, For Women Scotland, has suggested that Black’s comments call into question her fitness for office. But the SNP leadership has bigger questions to answer. Are they going to repudiate Black’s repellent views? Or is misogyny now official party policy?
Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She was previously Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board, and is on the advisory group for Sex Matters. Her book Unfortunately, She Was A Nymphomaniac: A New History of Rome’s Imperial Women was published in November 2024.
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SubscribeI find myself often thinking wistfully of Margaret when seeing how the present ministers are dealing with the country. At least she believed in Britain and its future more than her personal ambitions or ‘optics’.
A good writer, great imagery, fun characters, witty, satirical, irony and lurid analogy… it had it all for British Political opinion/journalism writing, but maybe too much of it, and I ended up wishing for more kind of – just telling the story story, the ‘Who, What, When, Where & Why’ and a bunch of well chosen quotes to cover the landscape of the thing and attendees.
But good essay writing of the classic British kind.
Agreed. I too was struck by the vivid prose and general quality of the writing. The author does touch on an important point, though. The progressives hold most of the institutional power in the UK (and US). Will Boris use his strong hold on political power to counter them or will he just throw bread and wine to the masses for the next several years?
Boris is on a short leash held by the very progressive Princess N N. The way all these Politicos today are seemingly are caught up in some 50’s British Sex Farce, very much being lead around by their parts rather than their desire for good governance, makes me wonder if they have not all been captured by the Post-Modernist Progressives – the same, but reversed genders, as how the Australian one has been.
It is like a very dark Benny Hill episode.
Continuing Galeti’s comedy analogy – the caricatures displayed here are straight from an 80’s Harry Enfield sketch, with a special guest appearance from Rik Mayall playing journalist Will Lloyd who has his nose press up against the window and is screaming “Fatcha! Burn the witch!”
I genuinely don’t know if Will’s piece is a parody or not. The only bit I related to as on point was the excellent Rory Stewart quote. Let me assume he’s serious. Across Europe, we see Political hearts and minds being won on the centre-right and the Green/far left. Boris is shameless in that we will nick ideas from both, whilst dropping same people/initiatives like a hot brick once either becomes unpopular.
Remember, whilst Boris has been running this non-event of a conference, the more extreme elements of the Green manifesto are crashing all over the world. Biggest growth in employment opportunities since the days of “Fatcha!” and the Labour movement can find little to talk about other than who may or may not have a cervix, whilst Blairites chunter on about a democratic vote that happened 5 years ago and whether Boris deserves to have a holiday or not.
Boris doesn’t have to respond or do much at all really – which of course is his most happy of happy spaces. He’s even nicking Trump’s tactics. Knowing the press openly dislike him, he can toss them a different ball twice a day and watch them wear themselves out furiously chasing them round and round.
He stands for everything and nothing; yes, he is the ultimate chancer and chameleon. But frankly, so is Starmer. He doesn’t even control his Deputy Leader, let alone the wider party. The only way he can get elected is by getting into bed with Nationalists, who despise the rest of the UK. By that time he’ll be riding so many horses in different directions that his legs will resemble a Tex Avery cartoon.
It’s no good wishing for a reunion of the guys in that first Blair band either. Those that remain need to get themselves some flash Green gear, get the old Momentum badges out and make their way back to the centre ground that way. Compared to that lot Boris is looking like David Bowie to the voters. Anyway, Steve Bray is awaiting instructions from Millbank’s Burnley headquarters, so good luck and all that.
He may be a fool but he’s their fool Will, and there’s a lot of them who are inclined to vote. Give them a reason to vote for something better, rather than just a reason to hate him personally, and we’ll all start to get to a better place.
You are absolutely correct. The Tory Party is strong as long as it promotes woke ideas. So, as I have said many times, the Labour Party is actually stronger in opposition than it would be in power.
In Oppositionland there is no Covid, no shortage of truck drivers and the everything looks rosy. Even the woke ideas are taught in schools so that the next generation will be brainwashed. The embarrassing Marxist extremists have no power in Oppositionland so they can be safely ignored as well.
I simply don’t understand this. The Tories are strong as long as they promote woke ideas?! Come again?! They are strong, insofar as they are, because they oppose (though often ineffectually), woke ideas, which the more ordinary people hear about, the less they like: ‘white privilege’, putting ‘trans rights above biology etc. The Tories can be pretty useless as long as much of the population realises that its opinions and culture are actively disdained by the Left. The Labour Party has been particularly good at this from Gordon Brown and Emily Thornbury onwards.
I used to detest Thatcher when I was 18. Now I see that she would be a godsend to the country given the state of the Con Party and the Labour supposed opposition. The country is properly f*****
Thatcher was an opportunist and economic illiterate who did one thing right, and several things wrong, including encouraging that crook Rupert Murdoch to buy the Times, (because he supported her), laying waste to Britain north of Luton by way of a grossly overvalued sterling exchange rate in the early 1980’s, and throwing away all the revenue from the North Sea which should have been placed into a sovereign wealth fund and saved for future generations. We don’t want her back in power, thank you.
“(Conservatism gave him an identity. A way of defining himself contrarily.) He said he’d hated school. Hated his Left-wing teachers.”
If I’ve read something like this once, I’ve read it a thousand times in the last 40 years.
Why is this still the case?
Have Tory education ministers all been asleep at the wheel?
They haven’t got ten years.
And people from Teesside don’t have Geordie accents.
Other than that a lovely, well written piece with some good forward pointers.
He has flair as a writer but his pieces are too often rather incoherent.
Pedantic point: in his municipal days, Joe Chamberlain was actually a Liberal. He became a Liberal Unionist over Home Rule and later aligned himself with the Conservatives in the “Unionist” governments of the 1890s and 1900s, serving as a minister.
Houchen isn’t a Geordie either.
This article lost me and dribbled away into a mist when I reached the bit about Ben Houchen having a Geordie voice.
Back in the mists of time when Dominic Cummings was young and working on the No side of the North East Parliament Assembly idea promoted by John Prescott and supported by every council , major political party , quango and what have you,and their spads, tame journalists and the rest the No side had Cummings, John Elliott a full on successful businessman and Somewhere person, and an big inflatable white elephant that sat in the background on every TV interview he gave (after he had helped inflate it himself).
It was a uphill battle for an idea whose time seemed to have come following the recent Scottish and Welsh devolved administrations and it was a bit of a shock when the establishment side lost virtually by 80% to 20% in the vote.
It prefigured the same shock albeit with a narrower margin that happened in 2016 and is still playing out now.
I can’t say I expected the result, either of them, but I did feel that constant references to the Geordie Parliament back then would be counter productive in a region where around 400,000 Geordies are commonly taken as populating a region with around 2.1 million people who aren’t Geordies and many of whom actively resent Newcastle upon Tyne’s pre-eminence, especially those on the Wear and the Tees.
I was surprised that Tony Blair one of the 4 party Leaders keen on it back then kept banging on about this Geordie Parliament, as the MP for a Durham constituency near enough to Teesside to be a rural commuter land he should have known better.
Houchen was born and raised on Teesside and his accent is a Tees one he’s a Smoggie not a Geordie.
One thing is certain:
“Green” jobs will never match the number of jobs that green policies destroy.
‘…is corrupting..”? “… has corrupted…” surely!
A wobbly, unclear, drifting article, but one which attempts to discuss a truth – the Tories, as in the early 1990’s under Major, have become corrupted by power. The failed attempt to reinstate the corrupt ex-MP Owen Paterson, by using the pages of the Daily Telegraph and strong-arming Tory MP’s, was a turning-point. Many Brits won’t vote for Boris again. They are having a good look at Starmer, and like a lot of what they see: honest, intelligent, well-meaning. He needs to sharpen his ideas and focus on some key themes. Tory corruption and dishonesty should be one of them.