Mick Hartley

As well as the BMA's obsession with Gaza, there's its obsession with gender. Yes, the two do seem to go together. From the Times:

The British Medical Association has failed to produce a promised “critique” of the Cass Review, amid a bitter internal row over its “abysmal” handling of gender policy.

The doctors’ union prompted anger by announcing last year that it would lobby against Baroness Cass’s report into gender services for children without consulting its members.

The British Medical Association (BMA) then set up its own “task and finish group” to evaluate the methodology used by Cass, a paediatrician, and write a critique which they said would be completed by January.

But, oh dear, it's still not appeared.

More than 1,000 BMA members have signed a letter demanding that it “abandons this pointless exercise”.

Senior doctors have warned that the BMA, which represents about 190,000 doctors, is “no longer a democratic organisation” and has made itself “irrelevant”.

They noted that the BMA leadership had consistently failed to select motions relating to the Cass Review at annual conferences, including this week in Liverpool, meaning gender-critical members were silenced. Other topics, such as the Israel-Gaza conflict, were prioritised for debate.

Clearly a much more important topic for a UK doctor's union.

Dr Louise Irvine, a GP and member of the BMA, said it was absurd that the union felt it had the relevant expertise to critique the Cass Review — which took four years and reviewed data from 113,000 children.

She said: “The idea that the BMA — which is not set up to do these kind of reviews — could do this by Christmas was always a joke. Then it was going to be the new year, then spring, then summer, then it was going to be before the [annual meeting], now it’s not. It’s a terrible waste of BMA members’ money.”…

In July last year, the BMA announced it would lobby against the implementation of Cass’s report after a secretive vote at a meeting of its UK council. Irvine said: “There has been terrible secrecy all the way along. It reflects a deeper malaise within the BMA. It is no longer a democratic organisation. It is too easily taken over by ideologues and interest groups."