Nicola Sturgeon named as Britain’s greatest foe to freedom of speech – Daily Express

Opponents are concerned that the Hate Crime Bill which passed in March creates a new offence of stirring up hatred which it is feared could stifle or chill public debate.

Offences are considered aggravated if they involve prejudice against a host of characteristics.

Fraser Hudghton, director of case management at the FSU, commented: I [nominated] Nicola Sturgeon for the Hate Crime Act, which has yet to be put into practice because its so unworkable... If it is ever activated it will mean theres less free speech permitted in Scotland that anywhere else in Europe.

Toby Young, the general secretary of the FSU added: The Hate Crime Act is the biggest assault on free speech in the British Isles since the invasion of Julius Caesar in 55 BC. The really scary thing is that the Law Commission wants parliament to pass a similar law in England and Wales.

The Law Commission makes the case for change in England and Wales, stating on its website that aggravated offences only apply in respect of racial and religious hostility whilst the stirring up offences dont cover disability or transgender identity. It also wants new protections for freedom of expression to ensure that only the most egregious hate speech is criminalised and private conversations will be exempted.

The Scottish Government defended its law, with a spokesman saying: The Act does not prevent people expressing controversial, challenging or offensive views nor does it seek to stifle criticism or rigorous debate in any way.

The debate comes as senior Conservative MP John Penrose has made a plea for the UK to avoid adopting culture wars and tribal identity politics which are blamed for pitting different groups against one another in the United States.

He said: Importing US-style culture wars is causing serious damage to hope of a genuinely fair and open British society. [I] argue we must avoid labelling everyone with an indelible, original sin or victimhood based on their race, which god they worship, their gender or anything else.

In his new paper, Poverty Trapped, he makes the case for new measures to ensure fairness in how people are hired and promoted to ensure discrimination and bias do not hold people back.

Mr Penrose wants post-Brexit, post-covid and post-poverty Britain to become a fairer, happier society that wastes less of our human talent, and where the old political battles of class, inequality and jealousy have become quaint historical curiosities.

A major research project last week highlighted enduring intolerance and prejudice. The Woolf Institutes study of anti-semitism on Twitter estimates there are nearly 495,000 explicitly anti-semitic tweets per year made in English that can be seen UK users; it understands there are between 100 and 1,350 explicitly anti-semitic tweets every day in the UK.

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Nicola Sturgeon named as Britain's greatest foe to freedom of speech - Daily Express