ANAS Sarwar has reportedly refused to say if he would vote for Holyrood’s gender reforms again – despite voting for them in the first place.
The Scottish Labour leader appears to have embarked on another U-turn after Keir Starmer’s visit to Scotland earlier this week.
Despite the majority of his MSPs – bar two who voted against and two who did not turn up for the vote – backing the legislation, Sarwar declined to say if he would vote for the Gender Recognition Reform Bill again, according to a BBC reporter.
Sarwar also voted for the legislation, but now appears to suggest that the party should have been more “conditional” in their support for the bill and pushed on the amendments they put forward, many of which they dropped during the stage three process.
It comes as Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner joined Sarwar on a visit to Glasgow on Thursday to meet with apprentices.
UK Labour has scaled back its commitment to introducing self-identification for transgender people in recent months.
Starmer has previously said that a system allowing people to legally identify as their chosen gender, as the Scottish legislation would have allowed, is not the “right way forward”.
On Thursday, Sarwar told the BBC that Scottish Labour “perhaps should have been harder in terms of [support] being conditional on the amendments that we put forward on that legislation”.
Reporter David Wallace Lockhart tweeted that Sarwar also refused to say if he would back the Holyrood bill again.
Rayner told the BBC that both UK and Scottish Labour want to “protect women’s rights” and transgender rights.
Scottish Labour have been contacted for comment and asked to clarify the party’s position on self-ID and Holyrood's gender reforms.
SNP MSP Karen Adam said: "The rights of trans people should not be up for debate.
"Anas Sarwar's decision to roll back on his principled support for the GRR Bill - given to party members during his leadership election - shows exactly where the power within Scottish Labour lies - with his bosses at Westminster."
Rayner has previously said the party is committed to creating a more “supportive process” to help people transition and said that transgender rights are “not in conflict” with women’s rights.
On Labour’s changing position on trans rights, Rayner told Radio 4’s Today programme: “We have talked about the Gender Recognition Act, we have talked about reform, we have talked about a process.
“Of course there has to be a process for people that is supportive and that is when you get into the weeds of how you ensure that we do have trans rights that are compatible and compassionate and humane.
“At the moment the process isn’t, and we have acknowledged that, that there are problems with the process, and therefore there has to be a process that is a supportive process that recognises that people can transition and that we do that in a way that is supportive of those people.”
In February, Sarwar said he did not regret supporting the Scottish Government’s gender reforms but insisted tighter curbs on sex offenders should have been introduced.
In an interview with the Daily Record, Sarwar was asked if he regretted his support.
“No, I think it’s important to stress that we have taken a good faith approach from start to finish,” he said.
“We were very honest at stage one of that process that we didn’t think the legislation was anywhere near good enough, so we supported it based on its principles.”
Sarwar caveated that he thought the Scottish Government was “wrong” in terms of rejecting amendments around sex offenders and single-sex spaces.
Scottish Labour MSPs dropped a number of amendments during the lengthy stage three process, many of which were instead moved by Scottish Tory MSPs who were trying to drag out proceedings.
