Police told to balance ‘hate’ law with liberty
Patel warns officers to uphold freedom as legal body proposes extending ‘hate speech’ to the home
THE Home Secretary has warned police they must “uphold freedom of speech” in an implicit rebuke of the Met Police’s “race hate” investigation into Darren Grimes and Dr David Starkey. Priti Patel t ol d a meeting of t he national policing board that the police’s job was not only to “maintain order” but to uphold the law which had “freedom at its heart”.
Police dropped the investigation into Mr Grimes over his online interview with Dr Starkey after a free speech backlash which included criticism from former home secretaries and a former director of public prosecutions.
The conservative commentator and the historian were being investigated over a podcast published on Mr Grimes’s Reasoned UK Youtube channel on June 30, in which Dr Starkey had said that slavery was not a genocide as there are “so many damn blacks”.
Ms Patel said: “In recent weeks we have seen public concern over freedom of speech following investigations into comments made by public figures, so I wanted to set out my thoughts on this here today.
“Decisions of the police to investigate particular cases are clearly an operational matter which I cannot get involved in and will not comment on.
“But, as a general principle, while it is the job of the police to maintain order, we also look to you to uphold the law, which in this country, has freedom at its heart.
“Freedom of speech is obviously a cornerstone of our democracy, and a right that we must all defend now, more so than ever, given the debates that we are seeing around the coronavirus regulations.”
Her comments came on the day it emerged that the Law Commission has proposed extending laws covering hate speech to private homes. The proposal was called “completely crazy” by some MPS and free speech campaigners. The commission has proposed removing the “dwelling exemption” from 34-year-old l egislation covering “stirring up” offences in a move that its experts argue would clarify the law.
However, critics have claimed the proposed reform risks criminalising dinner-table conversations in which casual comments may be made about other nationalities or groups such as transgender people.
A Government source said: “There are general concerns there are people seeking to curtail free speech. You just have to look at this idea that hate crimes could be extended into the home and potentially affect dinner parties. If you say something slightly offensive, you have to call the police.
“The feeling is that there’s now this group of cultural lefties who think the right thing to do is to go round policing what people say and think. There is nothing free or tolerant about that.”
The Law Commission said yesterday that the intention was not to criminalise dinner party conversations as hate speech but said it aimed to clarify “inconsistent and poorly targeted law”.