No Bill is worth the price of free speech
ITS record on law-making is highly chequered, ranging from the superfluous to the downright ham-fisted.
Now the SNP has devised legislation that represents a real threat to cherished freedoms. No less an international authority than the United Nations is warning that proposed hate crime laws would have a ‘chilling effect on society’.
The Bill increases the scope of hate crime to include age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, race and transgender issues.
Those convicted of ‘stirring up hatred’ – in a way that is not properly defined – would face up to seven years in jail.
And there is the prospect of a ban on ‘inflammatory materials’, including books, leaflets and other printed documents.
Truly, this is the road to censorship on a scale that should deeply concern anyone who values free speech as a cornerstone of democracy.
It also raises important questions: who, for example, is the arbiter of what is – and isn’t – acceptable? The implications are profound: the state is effectively telling us which views can be safely voiced – and threatening to lock us up if we disagree.
No one is arguing that there should not be some legitimate curbs on the freedom of expression, as there have been for generations. Inciting public disorder, for example, or encouraging violence, is unlawful.
But the SNP’s plans go much further by leading us down a dangerous road.
They are intended to reinforce a Left-wing, liberal orthodoxy which promotes ‘cancel culture’ – the tendency to vilify those who are deemed to be politically incorrect.
The problem is that once severe limits are placed on what can and cannot be said or written, free speech, in any meaningful sense, ceases to exist.
The SNP hierarchy faces a crucial test: will it learn from past errors, and drop this nonsensical Bill before it wastes any more time? Or will it – as history suggests – plough on regardless, then stage a belated U-turn when it ends in disaster?
The choice is clear, but ministers should remember what is at stake before they undermine our democratic rights and trample on hard-won freedoms.