SNP "bring Scotland into line with England..."

Fan-bloody-tastic. When Kenny MacAskill gave his atrocious Newsnicht interview on the SNP's sectarianism plans, I asked the following question and offered something in the way of prophecy...

So what the devil can the SNP do to get out of this muddle-guddle rapidly and with credible and concrete proposals? The answer, I suspect, will be the same one reached by the schoolboy who forgot to do his homework the night before and finds himself in a morning's panic before his first lesson - he'll peep over the shoulder of one of his fellows, and copy down their work instead, passing it off as his own.  As we discovered by looking into Iain MacWhirter's poorly informed Herald column earlier this week, stirring up hatred against persons on religious grounds is not an offence in Scotland, Tony Blair's broadly-discussed 2006 Act applying only in England and Wales. It would be an obvious and speedily solution to Scottish Ministers' unnecessary self- (or rather Eck-) imposed expedition, simply to amend the Public Order Act of 1986 up here too, so incitement of religious hatred became a stand-alone Scottish offence. It would also provide the opportunity for Ministers to use favoured commonsensical formulations and metaphors about "bringing Scotland into line" with the position South of the Border, supplemented by its air of "modernisation" and "updating" fustian legal norms with lively contemporary standards.

Scrutinising the Bill and its associated policy memorandum and explanatory notes (links and text here) imagine my dismay to read the following lines from the Government, justifying the shape of its proposed new offence of "threatening communications". Emphasis mine...

40. The offence will also criminalise threats made with the intent of stirring up religious hatred. “Religious hatred” is defined as meaning hatred against a person or group of persons based in their membership of a religious group, or of a social or cultural group with a perceived religious affiliation. The definition of “religious group” is the same as that used in section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003, which provides for a statutory aggravation that an offence was aggravated by religious prejudice. It brings Scotland into line with England and Wales, where threats intended to stir up religious hatred are criminalised by the Public Order Act 1986, as amended by Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 (and both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic have also legislated to criminalise inciting religious hatred).

41. The provision is restricted to threats made with the intent of stirring up religious hatred. As such, it does not interfere with the right to preach religious beliefs nor a person’s right to be critical of religious practices or beliefs, even in harsh or strident terms. There was extensive criticism of early attempts to criminalise incitement of religious hatred in England and Wales on the grounds that provisions extending to insults and abuse as well as threats could inadvertently criminalise comedians and satirists who make jokes about religion, or even religious texts themselves. We believe that the Bill avoids those problems and does not restrict legitimate freedom of expression.

Well whoop-de-doo. As long as ministers believe that, all's dandy, eh? Where do I sign? People may disagree with me about whether or not incitement of religious hatred should be criminalised at all - we can have a discussion about that. However, there is no line, no quietly ordered and rational reason why we simply must totter after Ireland and Norn Ireland and England here. Elsewhere in the same document, this difference between Scotland and England is presented as "a gap" by Scottish Ministers, as if it was an accidental legal oversight, rather than a considered and potentially justified political difference. Although it seems to have slipped their minds, in the House of Commons the SNP vigorously opposed Tony Blair's religious hatred Bill. Indeed, you can still find a few self-congratulatory news releases to that effect on the party's website. Ironically enough, the focus of Nationalist complaints (and the key reason why they opposed the measures) was concern that Blair's Bill would extend over Scotland. Here was Angus MacNeil MP in 2006:

"I don't think the Government properly thought through the permutations of this legislation. They could give no guarantees on the floor of the House that this would not affect Scotland. Such an absent minded and frankly reckless attitude was their ultimate undoing. As a result of tonight's vote, won by a margin of one, religious comment no longer faces the prospect of prosecution. There will be widespread satisfaction in Scotland at the result of this vote which was causing great unease."

How far we've come, when this robust defence of Scottish distinctiveness melts into this meek manager's whimper from the SNP, who reassure us that we have to be tidily "brought into line" with England and Wales. Just a little trim, sir. Nothing to trouble yourself over.  All that effort to foil Blair, and then you find yourself enacting his legislation yourself, at breakneck speed, to achieve precisely the end you once so strenuously resisted. Inspired. Whatever your view of the merits of demerits of criminalising incitement of religious hatred, in the football stadium or outside of it, I'm incandescent that the SNP government has permitted itself to be so vacuous and so cavalier about such serious issues, with any number of practical and principled tensions tugging the text this way and that. The Bill was published this morning. Holyrood's Justice Committee has issued what it unembarrassedly describes as its "call for evidence", with a deadline for written submissions of noon on Friday the 24th of June. I've a blog or two planned on the text of the Scottish Government Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill, the text of which I published this morning, which should hopefully explain some of its detail (and identify a few of its more chimerical implications, as drafted).

For Holyrood to sag before the Emperor's quixotic wheezes, however well-intentioned his basic inspiration to legislate in this area, and worse, to smile admiringly at his follies, and collude with them - is unworthy, totally unworthy of the institution and the many decent folk who serve there. It would be a terrible shame to discover that this new-constituted parliament so speedily lost any independence of mind its people once had, extracting every tribune's vertebral column on handing the new cadre of representatives their identification cards and the keys to their parliamentary offices. There are signs that some in the body recognise that. In her contribution to the Justice debate in Holyrood this week, SNP MSP and convenor of the Justice Committee, Christine Grahame, observed...

"The proposed anti-sectarianism bill is to be laid before Parliament some time this week, so we have not yet had sight of it. Notwithstanding that, I share the concerns about the fact that it is to be dealt with through emergency or truncated procedure, with little time for parliamentary let alone committee scrutiny. That rather contradicts the recent statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Parliament and Government Strategy that he wants to improve pre-legislative scrutiny. As I understand it, there will be only token scrutiny during the passage of the bill. As a back bencher and convener of the Justice Committee, I cannot say that I find that appropriate. I really do not see why the bill is emergency legislation."

I couldn't agree more.