“For Women Scotland” Court Ruling: First Anniversary

Debate between Jim Allister and Marie Goldman

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Marie Goldman]

A lot has been said about common sense in this debate. Will the hon. and learned Gentleman will join me in reflecting that common sense used to hold that the Earth was the centre of the universe and that everything else revolved around it, and that common sense does not hold true forever?

[Jim Allister]

I do not think that was ever common sense, and if that is the depths to which the hon. Member has to stoop to try and find an argument, it is a very ineloquent commentary upon herself.

I have concerns that we could arrive at a situation where the Supreme Court ruling, which is emphatic and clear, might in fact be disapplied in a part of this United Kingdom, because of the iniquitous Windsor framework. One would have thought that in a United Kingdom, a woman is a woman wherever they are. But in the United Kingdom, under the Windsor framework, we are told that Northern Ireland is subject to a different ambit of laws. We are told that under article 2 of the Windsor framework, we are subject to European law on matters that, some argue, extend to this very subject.

We await—it is due shortly—the Dillon judgment from the Supreme Court as to the extent of article 2. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has been so ideologically captured by the trans agenda that it is limbering up to bring a legal challenge to the Supreme Court ruling to say that it should not apply in Northern Ireland because of article 2 of the Windsor framework. If that is upheld, we face a dire situation because we already know what the European courts think on this subject. We know it definitively because last month the European Court of Justice ruled, in a case called Shipova, that biological sex can be trumped by gender self-selection. If, as a consequence, a part of this United Kingdom is subject to that jurisprudence, and not the jurisprudence of our own Supreme Court, we are staring into a situation where Northern Ireland would have a different definition of a woman and a different approach to equality laws, and a situation where that which applies everywhere else would be disapplied in Northern Ireland. That would be of immense constitutional significance.

If that worst case scenario were to happen, and if we had a ruling to the effect that, because of article 2 of the Windsor framework, the Supreme Court common-sense ruling does not apply to the whole United Kingdom, will the Government pledge, in the name of being the Government of a United Kingdom, to ensure a united definition and application of the law across the UK? I trust that necessity for that will not arise, but if it does it will be down to the Government to demonstrate whether or not we are a United Kingdom or whether, in addition to every other inequity, we could now have an Irish sea border on gender identity. That would be intolerable, and it would have repercussions far and wide—not least constitutional. I do hope that common sense will prevail, that we will not be found, because of article 2 of the Windsor framework, to be in a different jurisprudence and that we will have the same benefits—benefits that I trust the Government will soon elaborate on. They have dragged their feet far too long already.

Internationally, there has been some progress. The International Olympic Committee has rightly made a decision that someone has to be a biological female to compete in women’s games. That is right, sensible and necessary. It is really quite the commentary on our society that we have got to a point where nurses like the Darlington nurses have had to be dragged through the courts to establish the most fundamental principle—one that we have all known from when we could first speak, walk and toddle about—that there is a difference between a man and a woman.

The Government must grasp this nettle. The Supreme Court has pointed the way. There is no escape route. Now is the time to embrace that and to ensure that we have the correct guidance right across this land. It is a matter of regret to me that, in Northern Ireland, the Stormont Assembly still has not grasped the nettle and still allows biological men to use women’s toilets. Thankfully, in this place, the right steps were taken last June, but a year on, it still has not been addressed in Stormont. It too needs to catch up with the world and face biological reality.