Will my kids report me for hate speech?

When Humza Yousaf, the SNP’s cabinet secretary for justice, announced that his new Hate Crime Bill would remove the ‘dwelling exemption’ in the Public Order Act 1986, people were understandably horrified. As things stand, you cannot be prosecuted for stirring up racial hatred because you’ve said something inflammatory about race or religion in the privacy of your own home. But that’s far too wishy-washy for Yousaf. Not only does he want to enlarge the number of ‘protected’ groups, he also wants the new speech restrictions to apply in people’s homes. Henceforth, Big Brother will be watching you in the kitchen and the bedroom.

If Humza Yousaf has his way, there will be less free speech in Scotland than anywhere else in Europe — but not for long. The Law Commission of England and Wales has proposed that we pass a similar law. Actually, I say ‘similar’ but in some respects the Commission’s proposals are even worse. Andrew Tettenborn, a law professor at Swansea University, describes the 533-page ‘consultation’ as ‘the Scottish Hate Crime Bill on steroids’. For instance, the Commission wants to make ‘sex and gender’ protected characteristics. It proposes that a vast array of groups and subcultures should be given similarly special status, including ‘migrants’, ‘asylum seekers’, ‘asexuals’, ‘non-binary people’, ‘cross-dressers’, ‘goths’, ‘punks’ and ‘sex workers’. And it wants to ban ‘inflammatory cartoons’, particularly ‘Islamophobic cartoons’. Talk about handing a victory to terrorism!

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One of the ironies of these proposals is that criminalising hate speech won’t actually reduce the incidence of hate crime. In almost every country where similar laws have been enacted, hateful behaviour has increased in the immediate aftermath. The further you stray from the principle of equality before the law — by designating certain groups legally ‘protected’ and others not — the more division you create.