Did you have a laugh with your husband, wife or other family members home for the Easter weekend? We did at Pearson Towers. Himself is a brilliant mimic and often entertains us with his repertoire of accents, including the six counties of Northern Ireland and assorted movie stars, from Jimmy Stewart and his drawl (“Waaaarhhl”) onwards. His Frenchman-eating-a-piece-of-bread routine (no words, just gorgeous Gallic sounds) is legendary.
On Sunday night, when we were still clearing up after our seven-hour lamb (delicious), I pointed out that, from tomorrow in Scotland, any banter like ours, taking place in our own kitchen, if overheard by a passing busybody, could be reported as a hate crime. Naturally, he thought I was joking.
Monday was April 1, but, from now on, every day is April Fool’s Day north of the border. The ridiculous yet deeply sinister Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act has criminalised any speech which could be construed as “stirring up hatred”. It introduces offences for threatening or abusive behaviour which previously only applied to race, but is now extended to any “protected characteristic” including age, disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity. But not the female sex, funnily enough.
No less than 411 Third Party Reporting Centres for Hate Crime have been set up across the country where Scots can dob their fellow citizens in for alleged offences against liberal groupthink.
“Crimes motivated by prejudice will be treated more seriously and will not be tolerated by society,” the finger-wagging overview of the Bill declares. And who, you might ask, gets to decide when prejudice curdles into “hate”? Will it be someone like that Metropolitan Police officer who explained to an incredulous young Jewish woman during Saturday’s pro-Palestine march that the waving of a swastika was not necessarily illegal because everything “needs to be taken in context”? The internationally acknowledged symbol of the Third Reich which murdered six million Jews – not hateful enough for you, officer?
We never thought we’d live to see a Western government imposing subjective political preferences that criminalise the wider, law-abiding population as the Scottish Parliament has done.
First Minister and SNP leader Humza Yousaf, a one-man protected characteristic, has simultaneously turned Scotland into a nation of snitches and effectively made any criticism of him or his religion illegal. Joseph Stalin would be proud of you, Humza! Hope the construction of the Hebridean gulag is proceeding apace; you’re going to need a lot of camps to house all those prisoners guilty of wrongthink.
On Monday, JK Rowling pointed out that she could well be one of the first inmates in Humza’s hate prison. In a masterstroke for free speech, the Harry Potter author posted a series of “offensive” tweets (i.e. uncontroversial to any sensible person) and challenged police to arrest her when she returns to Scotland, the home, as she caustically observed, of the Enlightenment.
Campaigners like Rowling, who dare to point out that rapists who self-identify as women (while still in possession of a penis) are clearly men, may now be breaking the law simply for stating biological fact (although, rather bizarrely, police announced today they would not be taking any action against the author).
And, no, you don’t have to be “anti-trans” to “misgender” a person calling himself Isla Bryson when his sex was clearly visible through his Lycra leggings. You just have to be someone with a working knowledge of DNA who doesn’t want to call a rogue “he” a “she”.
The term Orwellian is overused, but I can’t think of any other that better fits this draconian scenario.
“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly and the true had got to be defended… Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was supposed to be a warning, not a kit for legislation in 2024. Yet, that is precisely what the woke zealots have imposed on poor Scotland, and what a Labour government may soon do to the rest of the United Kingdom if we don’t look out.
As enlightenment gives way to authoritarian darkness, JK Rowling is using her vast wealth as a shield to fight on behalf of all those who would like to object but can’t afford the legal fees. A heroine as valiant as Hermione Granger using her wand to defeat Draco Malfoy, Rowling has offered herself up as a symbol of non-violent resistance to a crazy, unjust law. Covid-19 legislation apart, it is, I think, the greatest threat to freedom in these isles in modern history.
Another ray of hope has come from our old friend: the law of unintended consequences. In its guidance to the new Hate Crime Act, Police Scotland said, quite despicably, that the so-called “Hate Monster” which features in the Government’s infantile advertising campaign, “is most likely to lurk in young men with deep-rooted feelings of being socially and economically disadvantaged combined with ideas about white-male entitlement”.
The great broadcaster Andrew Neil, who hails from a Scots working-class background, responded scathingly on X (Twitter): “This sounds to me quite hateful/insulting/abusive about a section of society which doesn’t have much going for it. Can I report Police Scotland to Police Scotland under the new Hate Crime Act?”
The Indian Council of Scotland did just that. Within 24 hours, it announced triumphantly: “Police Scotland have taken down the negative text about white working-class men”.
Hang on, not so fast. Surely, we can still look forward to the delicious spectacle of Police Scotland being prosecuted by Police Scotland under Section 4 of the new Act for stirring up hatred between different ethnic groups? Or maybe Scotland’s First Minister and all those righteous Labour, Lib Dem and Green creeps who voted for it, don’t think that singling out young, white working-class men as racist villains is prejudiced?
Supporters of the Hate Act insist that “offensive speech” is not criminalised, only speech which a “reasonable person” would consider to be threatening or abusive and intended to stir up hatred. Just a wild guess, but I doubt that Humza Yousaf’s idea of a reasonable person would ring any bells with a reader of The Daily Telegraph; and, as we know, there is no known human type more reasonable.
In a final twist worthy of the creator of Hogwarts herself, the police have been inundated by defiant Scots reporting a certain Humza Yousaf for stirring up hatred. Against white people. In an unpleasant speech dripping with dislike, made three years ago when he was Justice Secretary, Yousaf said Scotland had “a problem of structural racism”.
He named several senior positions in the Scottish government and civil society which he said were “all filled by white people”. (Not particularly surprising when 95.4 per cent of the Scottish population report their ethnicity as “White”.) The clip was retweeted by Elon Musk who said Yousaf “openly despises white people”.
Police Scotland says the First Minister has “no case to answer”. Millions of people who care about free speech, and who wish to be able to banter in their own kitchens without a chilling knock on the door, may beg to differ.
How about as many Scots as possible report Yousaf for a hate crime and gum up the system? It would serve him and his fellow zealots right. The obvious, the silly and the true have to be defended. Two plus two makes four. We will not obey the party, we will not reject the evidence of our eyes and ears.
I stand with JK Rowling. That rapist is not a woman.
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
