ANAS Sarwar and Scottish Labour have been panned for their U-turn on gender reform just hours before their party conference is set to open.
Scottish Labour MSPs, MPs, and delegates are set to descend on Glasgow from Friday for a three-day conference aimed at reversing their ailing polling fortunes and installing Sarwar as first minister in 2026.
However, Scotland’s largest trade union body has issued a stinging statement attacking the party’s leadership for its U-turn on support for gender reform in Scotland.
Previously, Sarwar whipped his MSPs to back the legislation, which passed through Holyrood in 2023 with support from all parties. However, it was vetoed by the then-Tory government, who for the first time ever deployed Section 35 of the Scotland Act.
The gender reforms would have simplified the process to allow transgender people to self-identify, removing the medical element, during the process of applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).
U-turning on his and his party’s support for gender reform earlier in the week, Sarwar suggested he did not understand what he was voting for.
He said he had taken “at face value the Scottish Government, on the record, they said that nothing in the legislation would negatively interact with the Equality Act”.
Underlining the sharp U-turn on his party’s previous Holyrood manifesto, Sarwar went on: “If we are going to stop falling into divisive culture-war politics, if we are going to make sure we're making progress as a nation, then we've got to say quite clearly we support single-sex spaces based on biological sex.”
The move has sparked anger from the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), which represents more than half a million Scots trade unionists.
The STUC’s LGBT+ workers committee said: “We condemn Scottish Labour’s U-Turn on Gender Recognition Reform.
“This betrayal of Scotland’s LGBT+ community inflicts hurt on some of our most vulnerable in society. Rather than stand alongside us, Scottish Labour have amplified a national and international onslaught against those who seek only fairness rather than recognition and equality.
“Our Labour movement is built on respect, tolerance and solidarity for those in struggle. The Labour leadership would do well to embody those principles.”
Sarwar is expected to face protests at the Scottish Labour conference from trade unionists angered by his broken pledge that a Labour-run UK government would step in with “hundreds of millions” in support for Grangemouth oil refinery, which is shutting down.
