Toby Young Toby Young

Let’s not become Scotland

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issue 11 December 2021

The Law Commission has published a string of recommendations following its recent consultation on changes to hate-crime laws in England and Wales. As expected, the last one proposes that all existing hate-crime laws, as well as the new ones the commission would like to create, be swept up in a single Act of Parliament, much like the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act. Readers will recall that this Act means freedom of expression is now in greater peril in Scotland than anywhere else in Europe.

In some respects, what the Commission is proposing isn’t as bad as the Scottish law. While it does recommend the scrapping of the ‘dwelling exception’, whereby people cannot be prosecuted for something they’ve said in a private home (one of the most controversial aspects of the Scottish Act), it suggests replacing it with a narrower ‘private conversation’ defence. It also proposes that various topics be ring-fenced so people cannot be prosecuted for expressing unfashionable opinions about them, including ‘cultural practices’, ‘policy relating to immigration, citizenship and asylum’ and the ‘view that sex is binary and immutable’.

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