I AM always surprised how contributors know what the “majority of Scots” are thinking on issue they have a bee in their bonnet about. The recent comment on the Gender Recognition Reform Bill by someone who clearly thinks he is right and the “majority of Scots” agree with him is just another example of this amazing crystal-ball-gazing skill.

My guess is the “majority of Scots” do not actually give a fig about the GRR Bill or all the rammy going on around it among those who see it in black-and-white terms. Somehow the legitimate bill of the Scottish Parliament to bring Scots law into line with the EHRC guidance on “trans rights”, as has already occurred across most of Europe, ended up in a SNP NEC stushy which blew up in the media as the “special interest groups” on both sides of the NEC took ever harder positions and entered into ever more excessive rhetoric.

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The actual issue is not the bill, a bill voted for by a majority of MSPs after long discussion and committee scrutiny, the issue is the use of a Section 35 order by a politician in Westminster to block a bill of the Scottish Parliament which had a majority support of MSPs, simply because he could.

Whether you like the bill or not, the undemocratic action by the Secretary of State for Scotland, with clearly malicious intent to further attack Holyrood and its powers, is why the decision must be challenged.

Peter Thomson
Kirkcudbright

OPPOSITION parties and much of the media have recently obsessed over the minutiae of the SNP’s internal finances, but it was heartening to learn that the Scottish Government will take legal action to contest the imposition of a Section 35 veto on enactment of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill.

While the Scottish Government is introducing further measures to reduce the impact of the UK cost-of-living crisis on those most in need, it is entirely logical that it take this action to prevent the further erosion of devolved powers, even if the prospects of success are not considered high. It is ironic, if not disingenuous, that some are already moaning about the cost of this action, which will require little ongoing time of government ministers, while ignoring the billions of pounds lost to the Scottish economy by remaining in a dysfunctional Union which in only a few years has managed to lose tens of billions of pounds due to gross incompetence, cronyism and fraud.

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Also, it seems hypocritical for those attempting to justify the unprecedented action of de facto governor Jack and the UK Tory government by claiming the GRR Bill is not supported by the Scottish public when the Tories have not won a General Election in Scotland for more than 50 years. Furthermore, four out of the five political parties elected to represent the people of Scotland to a more democratically-proportional parliament voted overwhelmingly, after listening to arguments over a period of more than six years, in favour of passing the GRR Bill. 

Of course it is not surprising that the general public, who have not listened to all the differing arguments but have been subjected to a barrage of misinformation, may not yet understand the reasons why all the political parties apart from the Tories backed the bill, but it would seem safe to say that the majority wish to both see the rights of minorities, as well as women and children, protected, and wish to see a more powerful Scottish Parliament.

When SNP MP Dr Philippa Whitford debated with Conservative MSP Rachael Hamilton on this subject on STV’s Scotland Tonight, it was clear who offered the most reasoned arguments on behalf of the Scottish electorate as opposed to more spurious political soundbites.

Stan Grodynski
Longniddry, East Lothian

TORIES ‘treating Scottish ministers like children’, expert says” (Apr 15). This the final stage in reducing the status of Scotland as a partner in a voluntary union, since the signing of the international agreement between the nations of Scotland and England, to a region of the UK under the control of the increasingly English parliamentary and judicial systems.

John Jamieson
South Queensferry