How the Tories can stop the SNP’s hate crime bill

Free speech concerns about the SNP’s Hate Crime Bill have been mounting for months now, so it was inevitable that the Scottish Parliament would eventually take notice. The Scottish Conservatives plan to force a vote there tomorrow calling on the Nationalist administration to withdraw the legislation. The Tory motion is unlikely to pass given the numbers at Holyrood. The SNP parliamentary group operates essentially as a single bloc vote while the sole function of the Scottish Greens is getting Nicola Sturgeon’s government out of the latest trouble it’s gotten itself into.

What the resolution will do is compel MSPs to take a side. Holyrood is not known for its great philosophical exchanges — more than a few would be surprised to learn that Plato isn’t a cartoon dog — but a parliament that can’t pass a liberty without trying to club it to death should be made to account for the latest thumping it has planned for individual freedom.