The SNP has, until recently, looked unassailable. But amidst the drama surrounding the Alex Salmond inquiry, could a backlash to one of the party’s headline policy proposals sink the unsinkable?
Opposition to the SNP’s proposed hate speech law is clearly growing. The Holyrood government assumed that pushing through the hate speech component of its Hate Crime and Public Order Bill, published in April 2020, would be plain sailing. It would probably attract the middle-class progressives who traditionally supported the SNP; it also looked fairly easy to sell to ordinary Scots as a technical updating of the law inspired by a carefully-drafted official report from a Court of Session judge. Any opposition from free speech supporters could no doubt be waved away as the rantings of a few unworldly enthusiasts. As a result, Justice Minister Humza Yousaf took the Bill seriously, and was in no mood to compromise.
Holyrood badly misjudged. Any intelligent person could see at a glance that the proposals were a monstrosity.
It takes quite something to persuade the Catholic Church to make common cause with the National Secular Society
They added greatly to the privileged groups protected from disrespectful references.
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