The Daily Telegraph - Features
Yousaf has turned Scotland into a nation of snitches – Stalin would be proud
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-Palestinian 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 yesterday 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. 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.
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.