The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Bitter football rivalry proves Scottish hate crime law was political own goal
Manchester United and Liverpool played out a thrilling 2-2 draw at the weekend, as the English Premiership edges towards the climax of one of its tightest and most exciting title races in years. It was played just a few hours after a similarly engrossing Old Firm game at Ibrox.
But whereas the post-match chat in Manchester was all about the action on the pitch, in Scotland it was, almost inevitably, just as much about off-field issues, principally the new hate crime legislation and how many people may have been reported under it.
What probably escaped most people was the fact that, during the match at Old Trafford, Greater Manchester Police were on alert for so-called tragedy chanting.
The phrase relates to the trend in recent times for some supporters of Liverpool and Man United to engage in singing which mocks the appalling disasters suffered by players and fans of the other club.
The Munich air crash and the Hillsborough disaster stand as defining twin tragedies of English football, their dark shadows cascading down the decades since 1958 and 1989 respectively, the intervening years doing little to dampen either the pain of those affected or the disgraceful trend by a minority to mock the victims.
That prompted England’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to issue new guidance at the start of this season, with the full support of the English football authorities, to make clear that such chants are now crimes which can be prosecuted under public order laws.
That is the backdrop to the weekend’s game between Manchester United and Liverpool after last month’s FA Cup semifinal between the same teams saw some fans arrested for such “tragedy chanting”, with warnings ahead of Sunday’s match that any repeat behaviour would be similarly dealt with.
But consider, for a moment, what might have happened had the key actors and commentators in Scotland’s current “debate” on hate crime been transported to England at the weekend. What might have been the result? The mind simply boggles at what we might have been faced with.
Best-selling authors encouraging people to join in offensive choruses and then daring the authorities to arrest them? Former football stars urging supporters of their team to let rip with the most offensive chanting imaginable about people being crushed to death? A media almost universally egging on such vile absurdity, complete with acres of faux-sage commentary condemning Greater Manchester Police as agents of a totalitarian state for daring to even warn against the singing of such bile?
Oddly enough, none of that happened in England. If it had, there might have been some head-scratching. And indeed, some soul-searching to the effect that it was a country that had lost the plot.
And if disbelief must be suspended to even imagine that scenario in England, it should make people pause for a moment and think about just how absurd things have become here. It should, but it won’t.
Some criticism of the introduction of the new legislation, even that which acknowledges the scale and depth of misinformation at play, has focused on the Scottish Government for a supposed lack of preparedness for the firestorm that has come their way. The fact is the Scottish Government could have prepared the most exquisitely planned, co-ordinated and executed public information and communications strategy in history and it would count for almost nothing in the face of a tsunami of misinformation and wilful conflation, distortion and outright untruths, which have sought to portray the country around the world as a place where free speech is no longer possible.
This column focused a fortnight ago on the then imminent introduction of the new hate crime laws and made the point that virtually no legislation can now be brought forward in Scotland without some level of rancour, given the polarising effects of the constitutional debate and the now seemingly ever-present culture wars.
Thus, no proposed laws are now possible without the obligatory prefix “controversial” being attached in all public discussion. You thought clamping down on abusive and threatening behaviour would be something on which almost everyone could agree? Think again. How about recycling cans and bottles? Nope, no chance. The Scottish Government should just introduce a Motherhood and Apple Pie Bill, sit back and watch the country implode. Motherhood? Just woke nonsense. Apple Pie? Sounds like a nationalist plot.
One front page headline of recent days wailed plaintively: “The stupidity of what we’re now engaged with in Scotland is just unbelievable.” Well, indeed. If just not for the reasons stated.
Stupidity of what we’re now engaged with in Scotland is unbelievable