Reform UK is on the brink of a civil war over the issue of transgender women in female prisons and in a particularly unflattering twist, Nigel Farage has been compared to Nicola Sturgeon. Reform has been engulfed in a trans row ever since the insurgent party’s new justice adviser spoke out against a blanket ban on trans women being imprisoned in women’s jails.
Vanessa Frake, a former prison governor, said on Monday that some transgender criminals should be imprisoned in women’s jails. Farage’s backing is understood to have dismayed some party figures leading him to face a party revolt in Scotland. Reform was then blasted by author JK Rowling over its support of housing men in women’s prisons, which also goes against the recent Supreme Court ruling.
Clarifying his stance on the matter Farage then took to X on Tuesday to say: “I have never supported men in women’s prisons.”
It comes after the Supreme Court in April ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act “refer to a biological woman and biological sex”.
However, in contrast Ann Widdecombe, the former Conservative MP who was previously Reform UK’s immigration and justice spokeswoman, later said that it was Reform UK’s policy to place some trans women in women’s prisons.
But she said this was only for biological males who have had their body extensively altered in gender transition surgery.
This has led to anger within Reform, especially in Scotland where the trans topic is even more prominent. The issue was brought to the forefront in 2022 after transgender rapist was originally sent to a female prison. Adam Graham, known as Isla Bryson, was then moved to a men’s facility with the case sparking a heated debate.
Sturgeon failed to say whether Bryson was a man or a woman, instead just calling him a rapist. The former first minister was a staunch advocate of transgender rights and insisted she did not need to say sorry for legislation tabled by her government that would have allowed biological men to identify as another gender by simply signing a declaration, thereby allowing them access single-sex facilities.
Just yesterday Reform’s Sarah Pochin issued a tweet that “Under a Reform UK government, a biological man will never be sent to a women’s prison”.
However, according to Rael Braverman, the husband to Tory MP Suella Braverman, the message is “too late”. Mr Braverman, who quit Reform last month after just six months, claimed that Mr Farage is experiencing his own “Sturgeon” moment.
Responding to Ms Ponchin’s video Mr Braverman said: “It’s too late. The damage is done. I call it a ‘Sturgeon’ moment.”
He earlier said: “Deary me…this is reminding me of Sturgeon’s nightmare on the trans issue. We won’t, we might, we could, perhaps, if, maybe, we should..but we won’t.”
Asked for clarification on their position on trans women in female jails, Reform’s spokeswoman in Scotland, Claire Mackie-Brown said: “The SNP, Labour and even fringe parties like the Tories backed gender recognition and self-identification. We stand for common sense: only biological women belong in female prisons and women’s spaces – no ifs, or buts.”
