John Swinney is set to become the next first minister of Scotland after being tapped to replace Humza Yousaf as the leader of the leftist-separatist Scottish National Party on Monday, yet the veteran politician will likely face similar challenges over transgenderism that bedevilled his predecessors.
As nominations in the SNP leadership contest at noon on Monday, John Swinney stood alone as the only candidate willing to take the helm of the party and therefore the likely next first minister of the locally devolved Scottish in Holyrood. The clear path for Swinney to ascend to leadership came as former finance minister Kate Forbes stepped aside. Forbes ran for leadership last year against Humza Yousaf but fell short as her positions on gay marriage and abortion — informed by her Christian values — put her out of step with the leftist base of the party.
The fact that Swinney was unopposed points to the party brass not wanting to go through another bruising leadership contest but also that the Sword of Damocles hangs above any future leader after dispatching with Swinney’s former boss in Nicola Sturgeon last year and Humza Yousaf last week.
While support for the SNP has faltered over economic mismanagement and persistent issues surrounding the socialised National Health Service, transgender issues were at the heart of the downfall of both Sturgeon and Yousaf, with Sturgeon’s inability to say whether a convicted transgender rapist was a woman or not contributing to the end of her reign and disagreement over the prescribing of puberty blockers to children with his Green Party coalition partner sparking the collapse of Yousaf’s short-lived tenure in office.
Even before taking office, Swinney has faced a barrage of criticism over his woke stance on transgender issues, having similarly failed to be able to say whether biological males who claim to be women are actually women or not.
Harry Potter author and prominent Scottish resident J.K. Rowling took aim at Swinney, saying: “I don’t know about you, but male politicians obfuscating and blustering to avoid uttering the dangerous words ‘women don’t have penises’ totally convinces me that the rights and protections of 51 per cent of the population are safe in their hands.”
Rowling has become a leading critic of the SNP government’s woke agenda, notably daring Police Scotland to arrest her for appearing to violate Yousaf’s controversial hate speech legislation, which criminalises the “stirring up hatred” against protected classes of people with up to seven years in prison.
Former SNP deputy leader and the co-director of the feminist For Women Scotland group, Marion Calder, also criticised Swinney for his murky stance on gender, saying: “We would have hoped Mr Swinney had learned his lesson from previous first ministers.
“He states he ‘believes in the rule of law’ but does he believe people can change sex? That a woman can become a man? If he plans to be in power over the next two years, many will ask him these questions over and over again.”
Swinney has also refused to rule out the possibility of reviving controversial self-identification legislation, which would pave the way for biological males to have the right to female-only spaces. The self-ID law was struck down last year by the UK government in Westminster, however, it continues to be favoured by the far-left Green Party, whose support Swinney will need to keep his government together.
Indeed, Patrick Harvie, the co-leader of the Scottish Greens said that Swinney hopes to maintain their support, it “must be on the basis of progressive policies”.
Alba Party General Secretary Chris McEleny commented: “It’s clear John Swinney is already pandering to the Greens in fear of losing their support,” adding that Swinney should “focus on jobs, health, education, the cost of living crisis and self-determination — not self-ID.”
In addition to controversies surrounding LGBT ideology, the SNP under Swinney will also have to weather the storm of the budding corruption probe into the party, with Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the Scottish National Party and husband of former leader Nicola Sturgeon — under whom Swinney served as deputy first minister — being charged by police last month in connection to alleged embezzlement of party funds.
Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said: “It’s difficult to see how he can be the fresh start Scotland needs, when he’s the ultimate continuity candidate. John Swinney was joined at the hip with the disgraced Nicola Sturgeon and his fingerprints are all over her numerous policy failures and cover-ups.”