The SNP has been accused of ‘working hand in glove’ with radical trans activists in a bid to scrap new guidance on protecting women-only spaces.

Five Nationalists are among more than 130 MPs who have signed a parliamentary motion calling for the ‘disapproval’ of updated advice from Britain’s rights watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

Scottish Trans, part of the taxpayer-funded Equality Network charity, which has been given £3.9million of taxpayers’ money over the past decade, has been driving a campaign urging people to lobby their MPs to oppose the new guidance.

The commission’s guidance was published in May – more than a year after the landmark Supreme Court ruling in April 2025, which said the words ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.

Scottish Tory equalities spokesman Meghan Gallacher said: ‘SNP MPs, who are pocketing a lavish taxpayer-funded salary, should be ashamed of working hand in glove with this extreme trans organisation to undermine women’s rights. 

John Swinney should condemn his SNP colleagues for backing this disgraceful and wildly out-of-touch motion.’

Mr Swinney said he accepted the Supreme Court judgment but five Nationalist MPs – Kirsty Blackman, Chris Law, Pete Wishart, Graham Leadbitter and Seamus Logan – backed the Commons motion which calls for the proposed Code of Practice to be ‘disapproved’ . 

The motion was tabled by Labour’s Nadia Whittome, who has said MPs have ‘a responsibility to our trans constituents’ to resist the new draft code. Ms Whittome, the MP for Nottingham East, said the guidance will ‘usher in an era of enforced segregation’ for transgender people.

The EHRC’s updated guidance, which has been largely welcomed by women’s rights groups, confirms a service must be used on the basis of biological sex in order for it to be classed as single-sex under the Equality Act, as per the Supreme Court ruling in 2025.

This means single-sex toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards and refuges must be used based on a person’s birth sex, rather than the gender with which they identify. The code, which would apply across Scotland, England and Wales, was laid before the Commons on May 21, with a 40-day period from then for it to be considered by MPs and peers in the Lords.

Vic Valentine, manager of Scottish Trans, said: ‘If services across Britain were run the way this [EHRC] code describes, it would turn the clock back on trans people’s equality by decades.’

Susan Smith, of feminist group For Women Scotland, said Mr Swinney had ‘pledged to protect women-only spaces from any and all males’ but ‘perhaps he has no control over rogue MPs who are set on breaking these promises’.

The SNP was approached for comment.