SNP thought police feel the wrath of JK

IN a typically courageous and combative intervention, JK Rowling comprehensively demolished Scotland’s flawed Hate Crime Act, challenging police to arrest her if they believed she was breaking the new law.

We know from experience this champion of women’s rights isn’t easily intimidated, no matter how much abuse she’s subjected to. Yesterday she proved it again.

Taking to Twitter, the novelist defied veiled SNP threats that her steadfast refusal to accept that a biological male can become a woman could be a crime and tore into the iniquity of the legislation.

Risibly, Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf had blamed ‘actors on the Right’ for whipping up opposition to the Act. This must have come as a surprise to Rowling, who once donated £1million to Labour.

And to Peter Tatchell, dauntless campaigner for gay and trans rights over decades. And Joanna Cherry, a former frontbencher in Mr Yousaf’s own party.

They all believe this Act to be at best misguided, at worst Orwellian. Even the police who are meant to enforce it have grave misgivings. How are they supposed to determine where passionate belief ends, and hatred begins?

An equally vexed question is why trans women are included in the list of six protected groups, but biological women aren’t. As Rowling puts it: ‘ Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls.’

Then there is the issue of third-party complaints, which can be made by anyone at special ‘hubs’. Just imagine the glee with which activists will denounce opponents as haters on the grounds that they hold the ‘wrong’ opinions.

How on earth has it come to this, where expressing legitimate personal beliefs can be construed as criminal? Scotland was once the cradle of the Enlightenment. Three centuries on, it’s becoming a repressive dystopia.