Westminster plays ‘high-stakes game’ over gender recognition bill

Threatening to use UK powers to block law is a gift to independence campaigners but weaponises trans issue in run-up to general election

Just moments after the Scottish parliament voted to pass the SNP's gender recognition legislation on Thursday, the debate was disrupted by protesters shouting from the public gallery, underlining just how controversial the new law is.

Yet Nicola Sturgeon, who has fought for six years to get the measures on to the statute book, regards it as a big win. But within minutes the UK government had announced it was pressing pause on the act, throwing the Scottish government's plans into disarray and threatening a constitutional crisis.