Harvie accuses hate-law critics of ‘whipping up culture war’
Opponents of Scotland’s new hate crime laws, including JK Rowling, have been warned by Patrick Harvie that their actions could have “realworld consequences”.
The co-leader of the Scottish Greens, also a Scottish Government minister, was responding after the Harry Potter author “misgendered” trans people in a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter. Police confirmed there was no criminality and said it would not be logged as a controversial non-crime hate incident.
But Mr Harvie has now criticised Ms Rowling and others who have target ed people, insisting “Scotland has a problem with hate crime and with prejudice”.
He said: “It’s dismaying the extent to which some people have deliberately whipped up this toxic culture war agenda.
“There are some people in our political and media spectrum who, it seems, have not emotionally moved on from being school bullies, who cannot see a marginalised, vulnerable group without thinking ‘maybe people will like us more if we punch down against them’.”
Mr Harvie added: “There’s a high bar for prosecution under that Act and rightly so and specific protections for freedom of expression. But despite knowing that, they’ve tried to seed misinformation, mislead and confuse people into thinking that every form of expression, of prejudice, is going to be criminalised. "It really is performative nonsense. This would be bad enough if it was just a shallow game they were playing but it has real-world consequences. It emboldens the kind of people who genuinely do pose a real threat of hostility, of abuse and of violence in our society.”
Asked if Ms Rowling should post less provocative things, Mr Harvie told The Scotsman: “It is horrible when you see very, very high-profile people with a big online following not just expressing prejudice but almost trying to goad the rest of society into making this more of a divisive issue.” Mr Harvie warned that he has “come through some pretty homo phobic periods in our history”, adding that “growing up queer in the west of Scotland in the 1980s was not a safe place to be”. He said: “Often it was difficult and often there was prejudice but for most of that time, it felt like it was getting better. For the last two years, it feels like it’s getting worse.”
Mr Harvie also pointed the finger at those who oppose transgender rights, known as ‘gender critical feminists’, a term Mr Harvie said was “a euphemism”. He added: “I’ve no doubt that some of them will continue to oppose every form of progressive legislation that’s put through the Scottish Parliament, but that won’t stop us bringing that progressive legislation.”
Deputy chair of the Scottish Conservatives, Pam Gosal, said: “As a government minister, Patrick Harvie should not be dismissing many legitimate concerns over the Act. He is making unfounded and offensive claims about violence occurring as a result of people being opposed to Humza Yousaf 's law and he should choose such language far more carefully. Police officers, legal experts and artists have voiced concerns about this law’s threat to free speech but the Green co-leader appears unwilling to listen.”