Trans critics will be protected by new laws

Under proposed freedom of speech laws, people who question mass migration or criticise the transgender lobby will be protected from hate crime prosecutions. 

 

The Law Commission published a new report on hate crime which said people with outspoken views on political, transgender, cultural, and immigration issues should be protected from the threat of prosecution for stirring up hatred. The commission warned that - without protections written into law - overzealous officials could mount hate crime investigations that would have a "chilling effect" on legitimate debate and people's right to freedom of expression.

 

In the biggest overhaul of hate crimes law for decades, the report also stated that private conversations should also be protected from complaints of stirring up hatred, to ensure people were not prosecuted for dinner table talk. "The understandable importance that law enforcement authorities place on being seen to tackle hate crime may mean they do not give sufficient consideration to the implications of their actions on freedom of expression when considering how to respond to allegations of 'hate speech'. The correct way to address this is by clearly defining the limits of the stirring up offences. It is possible that in making clear that the law does not criminalise – for instance – discussion of controversial topics, our recommendations will enable law enforcement officials to deal robustly in dismissing complaints that do not amount to a criminal offence" the report said.

 

The commission rejected classifying misogyny as a hate crime alongside race and religion, but stated that people who stirred up hostility on the basis of sex or gender should be prosecuted for hate crimes - the commission advised that this new offence should be allied to a change in the law to protect "gender critical" views. It said that these beliefs that sex is binary and immutable was a long-standing feminist strand of thinking that deserved to be heard in a democratic society even if it upset people. It said such views should be protected from mistaken potential hate crime prosecutions, and cited the case of Harry Miller, a former police officer, investigated by Humberside Police for allegedly transphobic tweets questioning if transgender women were real women. For immigration, it cited the former home secretary Amber Rudd, who was reported to police for suggesting employers reveal their proportions of foreign workers, and Darren Grimes, who was investigated over his YouTube interview in which the historian David Starkey suggested slavery was not genocide. The commission said all three cases had occurred in areas such as race, disability and trans rights where there were no free speech clauses in the Public Order Act of 1986 – and which it now recommended should be amended.

 

Stephen Evans, of the Secular Society, said: "Harmful religious and cultural practices, such as genital cutting, forced marriage and non-stun slaughter, deserve serious scrutiny. Discussion and debate around such matters should not be chilled by the prospect of being prosecuted [for racial hatred]." Director of the think tank Civitas, David Green, said: "I would abolish all hate crime. I don't think there is any need. It is reinforcing identity politics, the ideology that society is divided into victims and their oppressors."

 

Broadgate Legal

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