Two Woke Authoritarians Make Their Exit

New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern and Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon preferred pandemic-era politics-by-decree to the inconvenience of persuading voters.

First New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, and now Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon: the world’s chief nannies are quitting before voters have a chance to push them out. The pair thrived off imposing Covid restrictions, only to find far less sympathy for their blend of woke politics and authoritarian control in 2023. It seems that, freed from lockdowns, many people are no longer willing to be nudged, cajoled, hectored, censored, monitored, checked, and approved. Nor are they willing to sacrifice their rights, their children’s safety, and their standard of living to appease a leader’s appetite for hollow displays of virtue.

In Scotland, Sturgeon’s commitment to transgender ideology proved her undoing. Having been first minister for almost a decade and, for much of this time, placed on a pedestal by a British media looking to contrast her favorably to Brexit-backing Conservative prime ministers based in London, Sturgeon naively assumed that she could push a Gender Recognition Reform Bill through the Scottish Parliament without much difficulty. Her proposed legislation would make it easier for people to pursue gender transition by removing the requirement for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and by reducing the length of time that applicants are expected to live as a member of the opposite sex. The law would also lower the age at which people can apply for a gender-recognition certificate from 18 to 16.

Sturgeon’s views on gender are out of kilter with those of the Scottish public. Opinion polls have repeatedly shown that a majority of citizens oppose her reforms. Women, in particular, have expressed concern about the threat to single-sex spaces such as public toilets, domestic-violence refuges, and prisons, if men can access them by self-identifying as women. A UN Special Rapporteur intervened to warn that the proposed changes could endanger women and girls. What’s more, Sturgeon’s plans put the Scottish Parliament on a collision course with the government of the United Kingdom. If the bill is passed, being a woman would legally mean different things in different parts of the U.K., undermining national equalities legislation.