Authoritarian Bill is no way to battle hate

Of the many ill-conceived laws dreamt up by the Scottish parliament, none has succeeded in assembling such a diverse coalition of opponents as the Hate Crime Bill.

The alarm is being raised in all quarters: from the Catholic Church to the National Secular Society, from the Scottish Police federation to the Law Society of Scotland.

It is grimly ironic that a government responsible for setting Scot against Scot has come up with a law so pernicious that it is bringing the country together in opposition.

Now a former Glasgow University law professor has joined the chorus of concern. Alistair Bonnington warns that ‘fundamental human rights freedoms, such as free speech, are not understood or respected by the Scottish Government’.

His words are damning: he was Nicola Sturgeon’s own law lecturer at university.

Miss Sturgeon’s government speaks with a progressive tongue but governs with a clunking fist. In its philosophy, law is not the architecture of ordered liberty but a cudgel for thumping down every malaise or misfortune that rears its head, regardless of the consequences for ancient freedoms.

An authoritarian spasm runs clear along the front bench at Holyrood.

The Bill’s critics are right to hoist a red flag. Not every social ill can be legislated away; often time and education and community standards are better at regulating undesirable behaviour.

There is no hint of that kind of nuance in the Bill as currently drafted. This is a law that proposes seven-year jail sentences for ‘stirring up hate’ – or merely saying things deemed ‘likely’ to do so – even if the accused had no such intention.

The Hate Crime Bill is more than governmental overreach; it is a full-frontal assault on centuries of Scottish and British liberty. In the name of fighting extreme views, Alistair Bonnington’s former student has devised the most extreme law yet introduced to the Scottish parliament.