An extract:
Specifically, what these MPs apparently do not like is the fact that self-ID is not the law. All the indications are that, in their view, men who identify as women should be permitted access – whether as of right or by permission of the service provider – to women’s toilets, rape crisis services, prisons, associations, sports and so on. In turn, that position is born of the fact that they subscribe to the minority view that men who identify as women actually are women.
But if Creasy et al want to change the law to introduce self-ID, they will have to do a great deal more than block the Code of Practice. They will have to undertake a root and branch revision of the Equality Act 2010, starting with either replacing the protected characteristic of sex with a protected characteristic of “gender identity” or inserting “gender identity” somewhere into the Act.
Either way, this would effectively dismantle the Act’s protections against sex and sexual orientation discrimination. The destruction of women’s and LGB people’s rights that would ensue can hardly be overstated. We only need look at Australia for an illustration, where the existence of a protected characteristic of gender identity in the country’s Sex Discrimination Act 1984 has resulted in lesbians having to apply for a special exemption to allow them lawfully to associate together without admitting heterosexual men who identify as women.
Back at home, the likely popularity of such a move is amply demonstrated by what happened in 2022 when the Scottish Government attempted to introduce self-ID, albeit through a different and arguably less damaging legal mechanism. The Scottish people had to be rescued from that imminent disaster by the intervention of the UK government in Westminster, which stepped in to kill the legislation by way of section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998. Nicola Sturgeon’s reputation never recovered.
The entire country may now be facing a similar catastrophe. If the arcane parliamentary procedure of the Early Day Motion is in fact the first step in a plan to reverse For Women Scotland and amend the Equality Act 2010 to introduce self-ID, then the public – and women and LGB people in particular – deserve to know about it.
Mick Hartley 
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