Murdo Fraser, the MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, has threatened Police Scotland with legal action if it doesn’t delete a ‘hate incident (non-crime)’ it recorded against him and scrap the national guidance it’s following, whereby if a hate crime report turns out not be a crime it is automatically recorded in this way. The Free Speech Union is helping Murdo with the case, which may be significant because after the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act comes into force on April 1st Police Scotland will be deluged with tens of thousands of ‘hate crime’ reports and the vast majority will turn out not to be crimes at all, but, as per the guidance, will be recorded as ‘hate incidents’. This can have a detrimental affect on a person’s career. In Murdo’s case, for instance, the original complainant, when notified Murdo’s tweet had been recorded as a ‘hate incident’, contacted the ethical standards commissioner of the Scottish parliament and tried to get him to open an investigation into Murdo’s fitness to serve as an MSP on the grounds that the police had designated his tweet as hateful. The Scottish Mail has the story.
A trans activist reported the post on X, formerly Twitter, to Police Scotland whose officers decided it did not amount to a crime but should be classed as a ‘hate incident’ which will remain on record – even though no law had been broken.
Mr. Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, is threatening legal action against the force to have the incident deleted and its hate crime policy changed, with the support of the Free Speech Union (FSU).
The row comes ahead of the SNP Government’s new hate crime laws coming into force next Monday, April 1st, amid fears police will be inundated with ‘baseless’ allegations. The legislation creates a new offence of “stirring up hatred” on the basis of disability, race, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and age, which for most of these categories can include “expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule or insult”.
Last night Mr. Fraser told the Mail: “Police Scotland has behaved not just outrageously, but unlawfully according to the legal advice obtained by the FSU. This is Police Scotland attacking free speech but it is more sinister than that. My tweet wasn’t pointing a finger at an individual, it was critical of a Scottish Government policy. If police are now treating criticism of SNP policy as hate incidents, that is a really serious issue as it shows how Police Scotland has been captured by the SNP policy agenda.”
On November 18th last year, Mr Fraser shared a column written by Susan Dalgety for the Scotsman, which claimed the SNP Government’s non-binary equality action plan would lead to children being “damaged by this cult”.