The SNP has declared war on itself

As if suffering from a severe case of “civil war envy”, the SNP are following in the steps of the Conservative Party by opening up ideological divisions all over the place. The most obvious one has nothing to do with independence itself, but is instead all about gender ideology – an obsession of the political and academic classes that was once ignored by the general populace but which now, thanks to Nicola Sturgeon’s hubristic dictats, is scathingly dismissed by most voters.

Alex Salmond, the man who has done more than any other person in history to bring the 316-year-old Union to an end, has weighed into this tortuous debate with a typically robust and no-nonsense demolition of his successor’s determination to enact self-ID for trans people in Scotland. Reminding everyone why he was once one of the most effective politicians in the land, he cut to the chase: Sturgeon had reached the “totally absurd” point where “you say to a majority of our people that you cannot have single-sex spaces – prized and worked and strived for – because of some daft ideology imported from elsewhere and, as we’ve seen, imperfectly understood by its proponents in Scotland”. Well, quite.

This intervention matters because Salmond, despite now leading a rival nationalist party following his rancorous falling-out with Sturgeon and her party over the last few years, is still revered by SNP members. Sturgeon has her supporters and admirers but even they are scratching their heads wondering why she chose this particular hill on which to stake her and her government’s reputation. Salmond has seen an opportunity, and he has not been shy about grabbing it. The same cannot be said about the SNP’s primary opposition in Scotland.

Scottish Labour has been most noticeable in the last few days by its absence from our TV screens. It may benefit from Sturgeon’s mistake because some discontented SNP supporters might prefer to vote for the party that isn’t in power, but there is no prospect of it fully exploiting the SNP’s difficulties over the trans issue. In an uncanny replication of Sturgeon’s trajectory, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has followed two years of clever, impeccably-judged leadership with a colossal misjudgment – the same misjudgment that has led the first minister herself into the worst crisis of her career.

Scottish Labour should be the obvious alternative repository of disaffected SNP support; its whole job is to stand ready to pick up the mantle of the voice of the Scottish people. Yet on this issue, it has revealed itself to be every bit as out of touch – if not more so – than the SNP. In a private capacity, Labour activists reveal their unhappiness and bemusement at the stance Sarwar has taken, whipping Labour MSPs to support the Gender Recognition Reform Bill even after amendments exempting convicted male sex offenders from taking advantage of self-ID were defeated. The fears of women’s groups who lobbied MSPs in defence of same-sex spaces were ignored and dismissed by Scottish Labour just as they were ignored and dismissed by the SNP.

So the party cannot now take advantage of the political mess Sturgeon has created for herself. They cannot even take advantage of this new fissure that has opened up between the SNP’s former and current leaders. As the nation looks on as the nationalist movement tears itself to pieces, Scottish Labour’s only role can be to keep its head down and hope that no one asks for its opinion on trans issues or – heaven forfend! – asks it what sex the double rapist Isla Bryson is.

Pity the poor Scottish people: stuck with a devolved government that can’t define a woman, let alone defend women-only spaces and services, and yet faced with an alternative that is even more beholden to Stonewall theology than Nicola Sturgeon is.

In such circumstances, the Scottish Conservatives should be able to make advances. Yet even they recognise there is a low ceiling to their national support that simply will not allow them to challenge to replace the nationalists. Only Scottish Labour can do that. But instead they have chosen, bafflingly, to take the nationalist side in a fundamental disagreement with the people of Scotland. The great Labour revival in Scotland, so often predicted optimistically by this and other columnists, may have to wait even longer.