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[av_hr class=’invisible’ icon_select=’yes’ icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ position=’center’ shadow=’no-shadow’ height=’20’ custom_border=’av-border-thin’ custom_width=’50px’ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ custom_border_color=” custom_icon_color=” id=” custom_class=” template_class=” av_uid=’av-1y5yi9′ sc_version=’1.0′ admin_preview_bg=”]<\/p>\n
[av_textblock size=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” font_color=” color=” id=” custom_class=” template_class=” av_uid=’av-krtotbpf’ sc_version=’1.0′ admin_preview_bg=”] 02 August 2021<\/b><\/p>\n It looks as though Labour have taken a hit due to their unintelligible Hate Speech proposals. The admittedly volatile Roy Morgan poll released yesterday has Labour down almost 10% to 43% \u2013 below the threshold that sees it governing alone. And, naturally ACT have done very well out of the whole mess, rising roughly 4% to sit at 11%. No other party did better than a 2% increase \u2013 but Labour is the only Party to drop.<\/p>\n The proposals basically do two things: make people feel better after the horror of a genuine hate crime (the March 15, 2019 killings in Christchurch, which these proposals would have done nothing to prevent) by suggesting that religion becomes a protected category, and demonstrate further to the insatiable gender lobby that Labour really, really has its back and will do its bidding, however insane.<\/p>\n Q+A Sunday morning featured Jack Tame and lawyer Steven Price glumly mulling over the prospects for the law, with neither seeming convinced that they’re needed or will be any more effective than the current laws. Price made the point that in some jurisdictions, such laws have been used against the very minorities Labour is so desperate to curry favour with \u2013 gay people, and Imams for example.<\/p>\n Jack Tame was brave enough to ask Price if someone tweeting \u201ctrans women aren\u2019t women\u201d might reach the threshold\u00a0 \u2013 and Price was honest enough to acknowledge that \u201cthe trans issue is complicated\u201d \u2013 but he still couldn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n In the panel discussion following the interview we were treated to the unlovely spectacle of former Labour MP Sue Moroney telling everyone that if we aren\u2019t sure if something we are going to say might breach the new laws, there\u2019s a simple solution \u2013 just don\u2019t say, or tweet it! Moroney seemed chuffed at how clever that obviously was, and followed up by cheerily reminding us, that it doesn\u2019t matter if Labour have No Fucking Idea how the laws will work \u2013 because that\u2019s what case law is for! No doubt viewers were greatly reassured by this.<\/p>\n Also surprising was that Tame, Price and Hooton sidekick Ben Thomas all seemed to think the fact there have been almost no prosecutions under the current law were a sign that another, more punitive law was needed \u2013 despite Price acknowledging the proposals won\u2019t make it much easier, and may in fact make it harder to bring a prosecution. It didn\u2019t occur to any of them that perhaps that\u2019s a good sign \u2013 that our country is more harmonious than the moral panic-mongers of the Labour Party would have us believe.<\/p>\n There\u2019s certainly nothing in the proposals to give women any confidence that things will change for us. We\u2019re not mentioned! It\u2019s not clear that sex will be a category specifically protected from hate speech, while at the same time, Proposal 6 insidiously seeks to insert extra definitions into the ground of sex in the HRA \u2013 including \u2018sex characteristics\u2019, but without any explanation of what this means \u2013 why protect \u2018sex characteristics\u2019 separately from sex? And what happens when the new protected category of gender identity comes up against the existing protected category of sex? Whose rights prevail? And, OF COURSE there\u2019s no discussion whatsoever about making violent and degrading pornography a hate crime \u2013 though it seems likely it incites men and, increasingly, boys to commit degrading and hateful acts upon women and girls. Grace Millane\u2019s killer watched pornography, including shortly after killing her. There\u2019s a case to answer there, but this Government just doesn\u2019t care about women.<\/p>\n It\u2019s incredible that the Government is happy to waste so much political capital on laws for which no cogent case has been made. And there\u2019s something disturbing about how much supposed leftists want to lock people up for saying things, to send fear into the hearts of us all, supposedly for the sake of making us better people in a better country.<\/p>\n If the Hate Speech mess has brought about a 10% drop in support for Labour, what will the draconian proposals in the Conversion Therapy Ban law and the utterly nutty contortions in the BDMRR Bill bring?\u00a0 This Government can\u2019t stay hugely popular forever. It\u2019s just baffling why it\u2019s prepared to waste its piggy-bank, chock-full of political coin, on these bonkers identitarian proposals, when Fair Pay Agreements are still nowhere to be seen, and wealth taxes have been comprehensively ruled out, effectively for another generation. Some of us had high hopes for real economic transformation with this government, but they\u2019re fading fast, arguably, along with our freedom.<\/p>\n
\nBy: Frances<\/strong><\/p>\n