Labour by-election candidate clashes with Keir Starmer on gender self-ID
The Labour candidate in a key by-election has admitted he was at loggerheads with Sir Keir Starmer over the two-child benefit cap and gender self-ID.
Michael Shanks, the bookies’ favourite to win the Rutherglen and Hamilton West contest, pledged to vote against the cap if elected a Labour MP.
Launching his campaign, he said it was a “heinous policy” and admitted he had “differences of opinion” with Sir Keir, who has said he would not lift it if he becomes prime minister.
In another split with the UK Labour leader, Mr Shanks said he backed the “de-medicalisation” of the process for changing legal gender and the “general principles” of the SNP’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill at Holyrood.
This would have allowed Scots to switch gender by simply signing a statutory declaration but it was vetoed by the UK Government over concerns it compromised women’s rights.
Sir Keir told a radio phone-in last week that self-ID was not the “right way forward” and he had dropped his support for the controversial reform having “reflected on what happened in Scotland”.
Launching the SNP campaign nearby, First Minister Humza Yousaf sought to exploit the split by arguing voters faced a choice between backing the SNP or getting a “Labour MP that will do Keir Starmer’s bidding and back cruel Tory policies that have seen tens of thousands of children, many of them in this constituency, plunged into poverty”.
Dismissing Mr Shanks’s insistence he would vote against the two-child benefit cap, Mr Yousaf argued that a Labour MP would “do whatever, I’m certain, Keir Starmer tells him to do”.
Police investigation
But the SNP candidate admitted that it was “not ideal” that the contest was being held in the shadow of a police investigation into the party’s finances.
Katy Loudon, a local councillor, said there was no point “in saying otherwise” following the arrest of senior SNP figures, including Nicola Sturgeon. Ms Loudon insisted that the furore, which has dominated Scottish politics for months, was not being raised by voters on the doorstep.
The by-election is expected to be staged in early October after voters in the seat, near Glasgow, sacked their disgraced nationalist MP over a serious breach of Covid rules.
Margaret Ferrier was suspended from the Commons for 30 days after travelling from Scotland to Westminster and back by train while suffering from coronavirus in September 2020.
She was then ousted in a recall petition signed by nearly 15 per cent of her constituents, far more than the 10 per cent threshold required. Ms Ferrier won the seat from Labour in the 2019 election with a 5,230 majority.
The by-election is the first major electoral test for Mr Yousaf as SNP leader but is also seen as a must-win for Labour if the party is to stage a Scottish comeback in next year’s general election and propel Sir Keir into Downing Street.
Asked about Sir Keir’s refusal to lift the benefit cap, Mr Shanks, a teacher, said: “Scottish Labour is opposed to the two-child cap, we’ll continue to oppose it and I’ll campaign against it.”
He insisted Sir Keir would be a “fantastic prime minister”, but added: “We have differences of opinion on certain things. That’s the maturity of devolution into its third decade.
“The reality is we should have different policy positions in Scotland and the rest of the UK because that’s why we created the Scottish Parliament in the first place.”
Slump in SNP support
Opinion polls have shown a slump in support for the SNP following Ms Sturgeon’s sudden resignation in February and the arrest of her and her husband, Peter Murrell, the party’s former chief executive.
Officers searched their home near Glasgow for two days and a luxury motorhome was confiscated from outside the Fife home of his elderly mother. Colin Beattie, the SNP’s former treasurer, was also arrested.
After being interviewed by detectives, all three were released without charge pending further investigations and Ms Sturgeon has said she was innocent of any wrongdoing.
Pressed about the impact of the inquiry on the by-election, Ms Loudon said: “It’s not an ideal situation. Of course, it’s not. I don’t think there’s any point in saying otherwise.
“I do have to say, genuinely, while out chapping [knocking on] doors and speaking to people, as I do all the time anyway in my role as councillor, that is not what people are talking about just now. People are deeply concerned about the cost of living crisis.”
Mr Yousaf committed to moving as fast as possible to hold the by-election, with the earliest possible date being Oct 5.