Almost half of Scots believe the country’s deeply illiberal new Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act should be repealed, a new poll for The Scotsman has found.
The poll by Savanta found 49 per cent of respondents thought the legislation should be repealed, while 36 per cent said it should remain law and 15 per cent did not know. When the 15 per cent who did not know are removed, over 57 per cent of Scots are against the law.
Savanta interviewed 1,080 Scottish adults aged 16 and over online between May 3-8, and data were weighted to be demographically representative of Scottish adults by age, gender, region and past voting behaviour.
The research showed a generational and gender divide over the issue, with older people and men more likely to want the law scrapped.
Men were more likely to believe the Hate Crime Act should be repealed (56 per cent) than women (43 per cent), while those aged 55 or over were also substantially more likely (62 per cent) to think the Act should be repealed than those aged 16 to 34 (34 per cent).
In recent months, controversy has also focused on the police practice of recording “non-crime hate incidents” when a complaint does not meet a criminal threshold, but is perceived to be “motivated (wholly or partly) by malice and ill-will towards a social group”.
Police Scotland’s guidance states that “for recording purposes, the perception of the victim or any other person is the defining factor in determining whether an incident is a hate incident or in recognising the malice element of a crime”.
It goes on to add that “evidence of malice and ill-will is not required for a hate crime or hate incident to be recorded and thereafter investigated as a hate crime or hate incident by police.”
Remarkably, more Scots believed the police should record these (44 per cent) than not (39 per cent), while 17 per cent did not know. Women (50 per cent) were substantially more likely to back the practice than men (38 per cent).
Last month, the Scottish Conservatives proposed a motion at Holyrood to have the law repealed, but it was voted down by 69 votes to 49 with five abstentions.
Now the party’s justice spokesman Russell Findlay MSP has urged the First Minister to axe the Act. “John Swinney should listen to the Scottish public who want to bin the SNP’s hate crime law which risks free speech,” he said.
“This flawed legislation is being weaponised by activists with an axe to grind and putting our overstretched police under increased and unnecessary pressure.”
He added: “Police and legal experts warned that this would happen, yet the Scottish Conservatives were the only party to oppose it in parliament.”
In response to the activation of this new law, the FSU have set up a ‘Hate Speech Hotline’ in case any of our Scottish members get into trouble with the police about something they’ve said. We’ve also put an arrangement in place with Levy & McRae, a top firm of criminal lawyers in Scotland, so if any of our members are arrested or interviewed under caution for something speech-related we can come to their aid.
If you’re an existing FSU member, you can find the Hotline number, as well as detailed instructions about what to do if you’re arrested in Scotland for a speech-related offence in the following set of FAQs.
The Hotline number is also available to members in this separate set of FAQs, which answers questions about the new criminal offences created by the Hate Crime Act.
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, which was activated on April Fool’s Day, broadens the offence of ‘stirring up racial hatred’, extending it to the protected characteristics of disability, religion, sexual orientation, age, transgender identity and ‘variations in sex characteristics’.
Putting aside race (which is handled slightly differently to the other protected characteristics) committing the ‘stirring up’ offence requires:
1) Behaviour or communication to another person of material that a “reasonable person” would consider threatening or abusive; and
2) Intention to stir up hatred against a group of persons defined by a protected characteristic.
As per the legislation’s protections for freedom of expression, it will not be deemed “abusive and threatening” to engage “solely” in “discussion or criticism” about age or any of the other protected characteristics.
Scots are also expressly permitted to voice “antipathy, dislike, ridicule or insult” for religion.
However, that carve-out does not apply to the legislation’s other protected characteristics, raising serious free speech concerns, not least for those who hold and manifest the gender critical belief that the category of biological sex must take precedence over a person’s ‘gender identity’ in policy and law.
Another free speech concern is that unlike the Public Order Act, which applies to England and Wales, Scotland’s hate crime legislation removes what’s known as the ‘dwelling defence’ (i.e., that an offence cannot be committed if both the defendant and the person threatened are in a private dwelling). This means that Scots can now be prosecuted for ‘stirring up’ hatred in their own home, which raises the spectre of children testifying against their gender critical parents in court.
The Bill won the backing of a majority of MSPs in March 2021, despite concerns that the entire section on stirring up hatred (section three) was “fundamentally flawed” and represented an “attack” on freedom of speech.
Activation of the legislation was then delayed while Police Scotland began the process of “training, guidance and communications planning”.
Two-and-half years later, in September 2023, the national police force established a dedicated hate crime unit to help identify, record and prosecute the new crimes created by the Act. It also began training its 16,400 officers in preparation for the Act’s activation.
A series of ‘third party reporting centres’ have also been established by Police Scotland, on the basis that victims or witnesses “sometimes… don’t feel comfortable reporting the incident to the police” and “might be more comfortable reporting it to someone they know”.
The nationwide network of walk-in snitching parlours are located everywhere from charities, council offices, caravan sites and housing associations – Glasgow’s easily offended can even drop-in to ‘Luke and Jake’, an LGBT+ sex-shop where specially trained staff are available seven days a week to help you report a ‘hate crime’.
If you’re an FSU supporter and you live in Scotland, now might be a good time to join the FSU – prices start from just £4.99 a month.
