The Institute of Economic Affairs warns that Labour’s plans to introduce tougher hate crime laws targeting sexual orientation, gender identity and disability could limit free speech, especially in debates around transgender issues. The Mail has the story.
Labour plans for tougher hate crime laws if they enter power could lead to criminal charges for misgendering trans people, a think tank warns today.
The Institute of Economic Affairs suggested that proposals revealed in 2021 and reinforced more recently by Sir Keir Starmer create “serious implications” for freedom of speech around trans rights.
Speaking at the Pink News awards last year the former Director of Public Prosecutions said it was “time for tougher hate crime laws so every LGBT+ crime is treated as an aggravated offence”.
He was outlining plans first set out in 2021 to bring in “tougher sentences for those who commit hate crimes targeted at someone’s sexual identity, transgender identity or disability”.
Currently only hate crimes with a racist or religious motive are classed as aggravated offences, which attract longer sentences.
Report author Marc Glendinning, Head of Cultural Affairs at the think-tank, said: “Many supporters of transgender ideology do not aim to win the debate but rather prevent debate from occurring.
“Maintaining free speech in this area, as in others, is essential if we are to defend a liberal society based on rationality rather than coercion.”
Labour hit back, with a source saying the report was “nonsense from the organisation that created the blueprint for Liz Truss’s disastrous kamikaze budget which crashed the economy and saddled working people with a mortgage bombshell”.
Announcing the party’s hate crime policies in 2021, party chairwoman Anneliese Dodds specifically singled out trans rights as an area where there needed to be “vital changes to hate crime laws”.
Worth reading in full.
You can read the IEA’s report here.
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