Sandie Peggie's NHS case is more important than Supreme Court ruling

The Herald Scotland

2 days ago

Her colleague, Dr Beth Upton is a doctor and so must know that they will never experience what Ms Peggie was experiencing at that time.
We know too that NHS Fife has spent more than £220,000 defending itself at the tribunal in a case brought by Ms Peggie. This will resume on Wednesday and is expected to last for another 11 days.
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After Ms Peggie formally complained about being forced to share her changing-room with Dr Upton she was suspended following an incident at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy where both medics worked. She claims that her treatment at the hands of her employer was unlawful under the Equality Act, citing sexual harassment, belief discrimination and victimisation.
There were many absurd moments during the first part of this tribunal earlier this year. Some of them edged towards sinister. Ms Peggie was forced to re-live some details of her intimate history, including being the victim of a sexual assault. There were attempts to portray her as a vindictive bully when there has been an element of class and social status startlingly evident throughout.
We know also that, on two occasions, NHS Fife attempted to withhold information on the tribunal. When Scotland's Information Tsar, the hugely respected David Hamilton, called them out on this, NHS Fife described him as 'emotional', 'selective' and 'unprofessional'. We know this because this health board, whose chief executive earns nearly £150k a year, committed a massive data breach by including their diatribe against Mr Hamilton in their response to a mother who had requested a copy of her child's medical records.
These revelations, serious though they are in respect of NHS Fife's basic competency, pale when measured against the callousness of Scotland's elite liberal class. Until Michelle Thompson spoke out last week, no Scottish politician has dared to express disquiet about the board's conduct throughout this tribunal. Neil Gray, Scotland's comically inept Health Minister, even expressed his confidence in NHS Fife. This is elite-level trolling of the Scottish public.
The hospital in Kirkcaldy where Sandie Peggie worked (Image: free) Ms Peggie's trade union, The Royal College of Nursing, has also chosen to abandon her. In an era in which Scotland's Holyrood elites have been exposed as political fraudsters, the RCN's treatment of this nurse has been the most craven and cowardly I can recall of a British trade union. The Scottish Trades Union Congress is currently led by a property magnate who also apparently believes that biological men can live as women, so perhaps this isn't so remarkable.
You can take your pick of the most startling exchanges during the first hearing of this tribunal. I found this statement by Dr Upton to be the most worrying. 'Biological sex is a nebulous term and doesn't really mean anything,' Dr Upton said. 'Nobody can actually define biological sex.'
I believe that what this really means is: 'Female is a nebulous term and doesn't mean anything'. Coming from a fully-qualified doctor of medicine, this is deeply troubling. Yet, the most iniquitous aspect of these proceedings lies in something else: that they and their employers were most probably emboldened to act like this because the First Minister of this country and his two predecessors believe exactly as they do.
They sit at the apex of a vast inter-dependent system of patronage that seeps into every crevice of civic Scotland. This is reinforced by every promotion, every emolument, every cash dividend handed to those groups which twigged early on that advocating for it was the quickest way to taxpayers' money for their organisations.
Is this rooted merely in a deep loathing for the little people to which many powerful people succumb? Or do some of them sense that the grift is running out of steam; that the well in which they've drunk for years is about to dry up? And that all that's left is to squeeze as much as possible in the time remaining so that they can land a tidy non-exec somewhere: an academic post at the John Smith Centre perhaps, or a position with Engender or the TIE campaign?
The outcome of Sandie Peggie's employment tribunal is, I think, more important than the Supreme Court's clarification of existing law that, for the purposes of the Equality Act, 'sex' means biological sex assigned at birth. In due course, UK civic society will be forced to adopt this, after the performative squealing abates.
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In Scotland, though, if Sandie Peggie were to lose her job over this then it means that every stratum of civic Scotland: from the government, down through local authorities; the health and education boards; the trade unions; the professional associations will all be complicit.
Certainly, you can say that the Supreme Court verdict ultimately gives Sandie Peggie a lifeline should she lose her case. This, though, must be measured against an awful truth that now confronts Scotland: that most of its political class, and its thousands of public servants, believe that 'woman' is a 'nebulous term' that 'doesn't really mean anything'.
Scotland's governing class are like cockroaches. No matter how unintelligent, craven, unprincipled and dishonest they are, they will always thrive. They've managed to create refuges whose true nature is hidden from the public and which will always welcome them and sustain them.
The grants they award to their pet organisations while in office serve another purpose beyond disseminating the state's propaganda. They're meant to ensure these syndicates will all still be in rude financial health when they come knocking on their door for a tidy, per diem contract after politics.
Kevin McKenna is a Herald writer and columnist. He is Features Writer of the Year and writes regularly about the working-class people and communities of Scotland