Nicola Sturgeon’s carefully confected outrage at Alister Jack’s invoking of Section 35 of the Scotland Act of 1998 against the Gender Recognition Reform bill may have impressed her Green allies and sundry supporters of the bill.

It has, however, been met with relief by the many who campaigned against this bill. Above all, there has been no significant groundswell of popular support for it.

Having used the Supreme Court once to try to stir up support for a referendum, no doubt Ms Sturgeon will resort to the law once more. I have no idea how genuinely invested she is in the Green/Stonewall campaign on gender self-ID, but I am in no doubt that her uncompromising stance on the most controversial aspects of the bill have more to do with creating a standoff with the UK Government.

It could all have been so different if the SNP had not positioned itself as the permanent opposition to the UK Government. Discussion between them of the issues, especially where they impinge on the Equalities Act, should have taken place, but for Ms Sturgeon and her allies the confrontational approach is generally the first resort.

Rishi Sunak and Nicola Sturgeon smile for the cameras at their meeting last week (Picture: Downing Street)

This issue is indeed momentous. The implications for women and girls in their “safe spaces” are a matter of deep concern. Yet for the SNP this is overwhelmingly just the next stage in their long war of attrition to try to break up the UK.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

New Covenanters

If Nicola Sturgeon and Patrick Harvie had any real interest in a “conversation” about gender self-ID or “democracy” as they claim, why did they blitz their self-ID Bill through Holyrood in record time in December, when they knew full well that most public and media eyes would be fixed on Christmas? Why the urgency to rush non-emergency legislation that wasn't part of any manifesto pledges at the last Holyrood election?

Today, the phrase “have a conversation” – much loved by trans-rights Covenanters (like their 17th century counterparts, they rabidly insist anyone disagreeing with their “Sound Doctrine” is “cancelled”) – has become synonymous with rabid secular cultists out to silence with violence all “heresy”.Addled with self-righteous hate, blind to rationality or scientific fact, they see democracy's circumvention by skulduggery as the perquisite of the “righteous”. While Rishi Sunak's intervention is welcome, it’s just a pity it's taken a month's growls from Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch to force his hand.

Mark Boyle, Johnstone, Renfrewshire

Time to reflect

Readers' Letters: Sturgeon took wrong approach over self-ID