MP wants action on hate speech websites
A PROMINENT Brexit campaign group and their multi-millionaire founder Arron Banks have been accused of peddling hate speech.
SNP MP Peter Grant told MPs that the leave.eu website had “incited hate” towards Tories who had rebelled over aspects of the EU Withdrawal Bill.
Grant, speaking during Attorney General questions, urged the Government to toughen legislation to ensure hate speeches could be “prosecuted through the criminal courts”.
The Glenrothes MP added: “Has the Attorney General seen the content published online yesterday by the leave.eu campaign?
“A number of his own honourable and right honourable colleagues were denounced as traitors and as a ‘cancer’ – simply because they disagreed with the views held by the billionaire owner.
“Will the Government consider amending legislation so that such clear incitements to hatred can be prosecuted through the criminal courts?”
Attorney General Jeremy Wright said that “hatred is reprehensible from wherever it comes”.
He added: “He is right that conduct that is online should be treated no less seriously than conduct that is offline.
“No one should imagine that they are immune from the criminal law if what they are doing is online instead of in what one might call the real world.”