Since the moment Scotland’s new Hate Crime Act was activated on April Fool’s Day, Police Scotland have been inundated with thousands complaining of alleged hate crimes committed by JK Rowling, and even the First Minister Humza Yousaf himself.
It’s easy to point the finger at attacks on freedom of speech going on elsewhere, but those of us who count Scotland as a neighbouring country shouldn’t get complacent, says Ella Whelan for the Telegraph.
Ireland is similarly in danger of becoming a basket case for free speech thanks to its Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill, which is currently before the upper house of the Oireachtas.
There are also oven ready Hate Crime and Public Order Bills in both Northern Ireland (as drawn up by the Ministry of Justice) and England and Wales (as drawn up by the Law Commission of England and Wales). Indeed, given the slew of censorious legislation passed in the last few years, it was perhaps unwise for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to castigate his Scottish counterparts for the country’s new Hate Crime Act. Ella continues:
Rishi Sunak is right that England has “a proud tradition of free speech”, but that tradition, fought for by the likes of Leveller Freeborn John, has always been contested. From the days of heresy and treason to modern concepts of “offence”, freedom of speech has never been absolute – in fact, it’s always been in peril.
Scotland certainly didn’t invent the idea of making “hate” an aggravating factor in the criminal law. In 2022-2023, 145,214 offences were recorded by the police in England and Wales “where one or more of the centrally monitored hate crime strands were deemed to be a motivating factor” – a steady increase year on year.
And we don’t just record hate crimes, but “non-crime hate incidents”. This tricky label is for those hate crimes where no criminal act has actually taken place – a means for snitches to get the police attention they require with nothing actually being done about it. More than 6,489 non-crime hate incidents were logged between June and November last year in England and Wales.
When she was home secretary, a speech made by Amber Rudd was reported as a “hate crime incident” by a professor at Oxford University. Far from the legal maxim “everything which is not forbidden is allowed”, we now seem to live by the rule that everything you dislike can be illegal – if you complain loudly enough.
Does Sunak know the laws on his own country’s statute books? After tweeting in celebration at the death of national treasure Captain Tom Moore, Joseph Kelly was arrested under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003. Under this legislation, expressing an opinion of a “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character” can see you put behind bars. Sure, tweeting “burn auld fella, buuuuurn” wasn’t very nice, but should it be illegal?
The Online Safety Act, passed last year, effectively appoints unaccountable Silicon Valley millionaires to decide what we are and aren’t allowed to say online. Worse still, it emboldens Ofcom to police what is acceptable discourse online. And I haven’t even got to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, which bans protest that’s too “noisy”.
A nation governed by freedom lovers we are not. In fact, politicians seem to spend most of their time searching out ways to limit and neuter open debate under the guise of public protection. Every so often one of our elected representatives suggests making misogyny a hate crime, a move that sounds nice and fluffy on the outside but only serves to further invite police intervention into our private lives and conversations.
Worth reading in full.
