'Hate Speech' Laws Are Killing Comedy

The leak of the Police Scotland training materials telling officers they should target actors and comedians for ‘hate speech’ under the new law coming into force on April 1st has intensified concerns that the draconian legislation will kill comedy. The Telegraph‘s Dominic Cavendish has more.

When the Herald newspaper published its report on March 19th, advising that “Police Scotland’s officers are being told they should target actors and comedians under Scotland’s new hate crime laws”, the comedian Al Murray delivered a pithy, pretty unprintable response on X: “F___ this.” Later he elaborated: “I normally suck my teeth at the ‘haven’t you got anything better to do copper?’ reflex, but for this I make the exception…” He added: “It’ll mean the law looking daft.”

To recap: legislation due to come into force on April 1st (the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act) entails a new offence of “stirring up hatred against a group of persons based on the group being defined by reference to race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins”.

An offence may also be committed if hatred is stirred up against a group bearing these characteristics: age, disability, religion (or perceived religious affiliation), sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics. Those convicted can expect to face fines and/or a prison sentence of up to seven years. These groups (except age, a new group added by the new laws) are currently protected to some degree by specific laws which the new offence consolidates.

In the face of initial resistance to the proposed legislation, which saw then Justice Secretary (now First Minister) Humza Yousaf roundly criticised, with Rowan Atkinson joining the fightback, modifications were made and legal provision given for freedom of expression to be protected. But the Herald report suggested that Police Scotland’s officers would indeed investigate actors and comedians if complaints are made; the leaked training material referenced the “public performance of a play” as an example of how hateful material could be communicated.

“When I turned down a safe space contract from SOAS in 2018 to make the point that our ability to make jokes is being threatened by a creeping climate of authoritarian censorship, many in the comedy industry laughed at me,” Konstantin Kisin, the Russian-British comedian and co-host of the Triggernometry podcast, tells me. “They’re not laughing now.”

Police Scotland issued a statement insisting that it wasn’t “instructing officers to target comedians, or any other people or groups” – but this hasn’t been conclusively reassuring to those following the issue closely.

As Andrew Doyle, the comedian, broadcaster and a published authority on free speech (he dwells in detail on the legislation in The New Puritans) points out: “I wasn’t surprised [by the Herald report]. The sub-section on the public performance of a play was flagged in 2020. Roddy Dunlop QC, wrote about how an old-fashioned ‘Scotsman, Irishman and Englishman’ joke would be perceived as discriminatory.

“We’ve always known this could affect comedians. Humza Yousaf was asked about this concept of stirring up hatred through the medium of theatre and he said it was conceivable that neo-Nazis might stage a play in order to radicalise people, which shows how little he understands neo-Nazis. All that has happened is that the materials from recent police training sessions have been leaked and become news. People don’t believe it until they see it.”

Worth reading in full.

Andrew Doyle has elaborated on his comments further in UnHerd:

Many of us have been sounding the alarm over the SNP’s draconian measures since the bill was proposed in early 2020. The Scottish Police Federation warned that the effects of the bill would be tantamount to the “policing of what people think or feel”, and the Law Society of Scotland called it a “significant threat to freedom of expression”. Senior Catholic bishops, meanwhile, pointed out that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah might be deemed hateful towards homosexuals and so even owning a copy of the Bible could be criminalised.

As for comedians, Roddy Dunlop KC cautioned that stand-up would not be exempt, and that even the old “Scotsman, Irishman and Englishman” joke would be perceived as discriminatory. But in the face of all this criticism, Humza Yousaf (who was then Justice Secretary) was dogged in his determination to see the bill pass.

Naturally, supporters of the SNP scoffed at the suggestion that anyone would be arrested for simply expressing controversial opinions or telling jokes. The police have said they will not target performers, but at the same time have promised to investigate all complaints. This is, of course, precisely the problem. Activists have already pledged to weaponise the new law to see J.K. Rowling prosecuted for the “crime” of referring to a man as male (in this case the former Big Brother contestant and online troll India Willoughby). Solicitor Rajan Barot replied to Rowling on Twitter/X, stating that any of her posts in which Willoughby was referred to as a man would be “amenable to prosecution in Scotland” after April 1st. “Start deleting!” he demanded. The SNP has effectively reintroduced blasphemy laws by stealth, only now it is in the name of the new state religion of Critical Social Justice.