I have a tendency to be over-optimistic. In my 2022 book The New Puritans, I wrote about “non-crime hate incidents” and how they were still being recorded by police, in spite of the Court of Appeal’s ruling that they were “plainly an interference with freedom of expression” and direct instructions from the Home Office that the police must stop this illiberal and unethical practice. However, I concluded that ultimately “it seems unlikely that ‘non-crime hate incidents’ will last for much longer”.
Of course I was wrong, because I had not counted on just how authoritarian a new Labour Government might be. It was bad enough that the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson scotched the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act just one day before Parliament went into recess – presumably to avoid having to debate the matter – but now the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has reversed the Conservative’s pledge to limit the recording of ‘non-crime’. Labour is bringing back this absurd policy, and has convinced itself that this is somehow a progressive measure.
It should go without saying that the police have no business recording ‘non-crime’, particularly when such records are based on accusations alone (that is to say, the ‘perception’ of the ‘victim’ is what counts, rather than actual evidence of hatred). The Tory Government should have eliminated the entire practice in its entirety, but instead decided that such ‘incidents’ ought to stay on record if there was a “real risk of escalation causing significant harm or a criminal offence”. The science fiction writer Philip K. Dick had a phrase for this: “pre-crime.”
So let’s leave aside the woefully inadequate restrictions put in place by the Tories. Let’s also leave aside the obvious point that hatred, along with all other emotions, will never be eradicated through legislation and that the state is wasting its time trying to alter human nature. Let’s focus instead on why the Labour Government is so determined to control the speech and thought of its citizens.
How does it help anyone for the name of the schoolboy who accidentally scuffed a copy of the Koran at a school in Wakefield to be on police records? His ‘non-crime’ was duly recorded after the event, but why? Does the Government really suppose that this child is one step away from torching a mosque? Even if he had deliberately scuffed the Koran, what has this to do with the police? I don’t much approve of defacing books, but vandalism of one’s own property is a matter for individual conscience.
Of course, Labour will say that the recent riots have proven the necessity for cracking down on the private thoughts of citizens. In truth, these acts of violence are being exploited to justify further authoritarian policies. We have seen how quick our politicians are to seize upon these moments to advance their own goals. The murder of Sir David Amess had precisely nothing to do with social media, and yet politicians immediately began to argue that his death was evidence of the need to curb free speech online. This was grotesque opportunism from a political class that does not trust the public.
According to the Times, Yvette Cooper believes that the Tory’s efforts to curb investigations into ‘non-crime’ was “preventing police from monitoring and identifying tensions and threats to Jewish and Muslim communities that may escalate into violence”. What is the evidence for this claim? Potential terrorists are already on intelligence watchlists. Those branded as ‘non-criminals’ are typically those who are unlikely to break the law. The recording of ‘non-crime hate incidents’ is simply a chilling means to control the parameters of acceptable opinion, to narrow the Overton Window through state intimidation.
Labour hopes to adopt a new definition of ‘Islamophobia’ which claims that it “is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”. The inelegance of the phrase is bad enough, but the conflation of religion and racism makes no sense whatsoever. If such a definition is to be applied in law, there is little doubt that ridiculing or criticising Islam could be criminalised along with attacks on mosques and Muslims. Given that assault and vandalism is already illegal, what exactly is the purpose of this redefinition other than to limit freedom of speech?
History teaches us a great deal about where this is heading. We know that legal proscriptions against offensive viewpoints do not have a mitigating effect; bad ideas that are driven underground tend to fester and multiply. We also know that laws against offensive speech soon expand to incorporate any viewpoints that are not approved by those in power. In 1644, John Milton published his Areopagitica, a counterblast to the Licensing Order of June 1643 which decreed that all printed texts be passed before a censor in advance of publication. In this essential defence of liberty, Milton pointed out that censors do not “stay in matters heretical” but “any subject that is not to their palate”. Little has changed since then.
Once the state has been empowered to set the limits of speech, to introduce legislation against vague and indefinable concepts such as ‘hate’ or ‘offence’, the groundwork for future tyranny is firmly established. One thinks of Juvenal’s famous question: quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (“who will watch the watchmen?”) Nobody with any familiarity with the history of authoritarianism would be naïve enough to trust that legally-enshrined speech codes will not eventually be used to curb political opposition.
We already know that before the Tories modified the guidelines, ‘non-crime hate incidents’ were being recorded against anyone accused of “hostility towards religion, race or transgender identity”. Given that “hostility” is now commonly deployed as a synonym for “criticism” or “disagreement”, we cannot possibly reach any helpful conclusions from these records. For instance, those who take issue with Critical Race Theory could be accused of “hostility towards race”, even though such concerns are typically based on a belief that people should not be judged by the colour of their skin. Similarly, those who maintain that men should not be in women’s prisons are routinely smeared as ‘transphobic’, even though their motivation is to preserve important safeguarding measures. How many of these legitimate points of view have been recorded as ‘non-crime’?
Due to a lack of transparency in the system, we’ll probably never know. Estimates suggest that since the practice was implemented by the College of Policing in 2014, there have been at least a quarter of a million ‘non-crimes’ recorded by police in England and Wales. We know that this can have an impact on the employment prospects of the accused, particularly if they work in a field that requires DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) checks. The system of ‘non-crime hate incidents’ gives a green light to anyone with a grudge to exact revenge without having to present any evidence whatsoever for the charge of ‘hate’.
The threat that ‘non-crime hate incidents’ represent to liberty cannot be overstated. That the Labour Government is trying to escalate the practice should trouble us all. The creeping authoritarianism of our times is undeniably picking up pace.
Andrew Doyle is a writer, comedian and broadcaster who hosts the GB News show Free Speech Nation. He is the author of Free Speech and Why It Matters and The New Puritans. He created satirical Left-wing activist Titania McGrath, whose two books are Woke: A Guide to Social Justice and My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism. This article was first published on his Substack. You can subscribe here.
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“Johnson, like any layman in such circumstances, was out of his depth.”
Cobblers. He’s no dummy. “Laymen” in leadership positions are always listening and evaluating “expert” advice and having a working bullshit detector is part of the job. For goodness’ sake we here all worked this out pretty early on. I’m no genius.
Anyway, it’s not about “one man” – he was one of many cogs in a wicked global wheel that is still cranking full tilt.
If he was out of his depth, the failings were moral, not intellectual.
Precisely.
He knew it was just a cough. He folded like paper in an origami master’s hands.
He had a chance at his Thatcher moment. This time it could have been a chance to get global attention and admiration. But he flopped. Intellectually idle. No moral compass.
I believe he could have put Britain back on the map. Could have been a true statesman. Boris, you fuc*ed up, mate, and you chose the wrong bedfellows. Now you must lie with them for eternity.
Damned right tof.
Bozo failed as a man and basically caved in to the Satanic evil of the Davos Deviants. More than likely he has been blackmailed but instead of thinking of King and Country he wimped out like a cowardly school boy. He is and always will be just like Bliar and many others, a coward.
Bullingdon Club. What else can we expect?
Let’s not forget, after treating the country like a bunch of expendable half-wit pawns, he added to the blood on his hands by extending the war in Ukraine and stamping about with his usual bluster on getting evil Putin and spouting “Slava Ukrain.”
Made me sick.
Good point.
….and a visit to I*rael (who paid for that I wonder) to entertain the troops as they continued their slaughter of Gaza’s population.
Turned out to be a ballless wonder…
Boris is lazy and has never learned from his previous experiences. He fought hard for the role, and then like so many others, found it not to his liking.
Sunak is the same and when confronted with making a decision looks around him for someone else, instead of realising he is the someone.
Then they get ‘bored’ and interfere overseas instead of running their own Country.
To be a real leader you have to love your Country and it’s People and put them before yourself. The late Queen would be an example, although she was not a political Leader.
The sequence of relationships he has gone through demonstrates that fact. In the main, I never listened to his output after 2019.
Bunter hasn’t disappointed me in any way because I never took him seriously. Even as a long time Brexiteer activist I couldn’t bring myself to give him my vote in 2019.
Leave him in the gutter along with all the other similar Tory sewer rats because that’s where he belongs.
This fetish for comparing Johnson and Churchill is absolutely comical.
Not sure how it got started. Perhaps by Johnson himself.
If Johnson is to be compared to anyone it should be to the worst prime minister in history and then only to replace him.
Why do people keep trotting out the line that Johnson was an obvious libertarian, when all his actions have proven otherwise
Three issues with Johnson:
1. Jezebelic, ruthlessly ambitious wife
2. Carbonocrat, therefore globalist
3. Plays the fool so you underestimate him.
The man inherited an 80 seat majority so could have seen the UK as energy independent, free of the ECHR, secure borders, Singaporesq economy.
His judgment is totally compromised and despite his pretensions as a historian, has no love for Britain’s Judeo-Christian heritage.
In summary, a charlatan.
While I agree with your comments I believe you are underestimating Bozo’s malevolence and treachery.
Just gave you a thumbs up and you got 12 and one thumbs down. Not sure who’s running the DS computer? Toby’s shed roof must be leaking.
Thank you.
It is a FACT that five days before Johnson announced the first lockdown, his Government downgraded Covid from a High Consequence Infectious Disease – with the justification that they had more data and the virus had low rates of mortality.
It would have taken several weeks for the scientists to reach that conclusion; get Government agreement for the downgrading, approve the Comms and publish on the Government’s website.
Yet Johnson locked down five days later, along with most of western Europe and the Anglosphere.
I think the NATO and Five Eyes countries were ordered to lockdown by the USA “Big State.” It’s noticeable that at that time, Sweden, which didn’t lockdown, was not in NATO.
Johnson was no Churchill. He wasn’t even a Thatcher. The better comparison, if one must be made, is with Chamberlain. And even then, he’s the inferior of the two.
“Government downgraded Covid from a High Consequence Infectious Disease”
I believe that the reason for this was that if the C1984 was left at HCID current legislation means that all potentially viable prophylactics had to remain available. By downgrading they were able to ban Ivermectin and Hydroxichloroquine.
In other words they knew from the off that C1984 wasn’t a killer and would be easily treated with Ivermectin and Hydroxichloroquine. As the end game was getting the poisonous “vaccines” in to as many arms as possible this couldn’t be allowed.
Excellent point!
I’ll always agree with you on this Hux it is and was always about the toxic sludge. The only way they could get people to take it were the lockdowns and the stabs were sold as people’s only way out of house arrest.
Johnson certainly damaged our country’s economy and nation’s health more than Hitler’s bombs ever did. In addition he is responsible for the destruction of Ukraine and 500,000 deaths although he has managed to inflate his wealth somewhat, a coincidence I am sure!