From Scotland ...

During the IndyRef I made the joke that I didn't want to have the American Election coverage brought to me by Jacqui Bird. That won't happen they said, because Scotland has huge talent of it's own. It certainly does, but why would they work to serve a population smaller than Yorkshire when they can fk off to London for huge pay and international recognition?

Sorry, that's not remotely the point of the thread.

*which is not good for a healthy democracy

From what I've seen, Morris, in Scotland the Tories are second to the SNP (by a country mile, but still way ahead of Labour). I do feel like the other parties have pretty much abandoned Scotland to the SNP. Which is not a healthy democracy.

Ah the mythical 'other parties' that we'll all vote for in an independent Scotland. Who are these parties? Not the Tories, obvs. Scottish Labour are a joke.

Is it going to be the magical post Indy 'new talent'? I personally would love it a lot if the huge talents we have here in Scotland could make themselves known now.

Could be a schism in the party. I don't really care about the inner machinations of the SNP, though - if a party with such a huge majority can't openly and fairly resolve disputes then it's damaging to the country. And yes, that echoes Westminster situation.

From what I hear the SNP rank and file are none too keen on the takeover of the party by carpetbagging no-marks from Stirling University.

In practice, what will happen is the prosecution services (I'm not that au fait with Scottish law) will use discretion over who to prosecute.

Ah, that would be the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service - a Stonewall diversity champion member.

If you point out crime committed by transwomen follows the male patern that would be hate. No doubt about it. You would not be able to point out the elephant in the room because they would say that was stirring up hate. Which is precisely what they hope to achieve.

Yes did you know that Catholics only got economic parity with Protestants in 1986?

Cornton Vale is the only women's prison in Scotland and it has only 116 places... they need A MASSIVE prison building programme if this goes ahead. I can see myself sitting out the rest of this plague in prison.

Nationalist voters have some wild ideas about what Scotland would be like in the event of independence. In the meantime, the country is being run into the ground by the bonkers SNP, with the help of the Greens, and voters are allowing it. At least the GRA was 'put back' till the next Parliament, but that is only next year and I'm praying it never sees the light of day again. As for Humza Yousef's 'hate crime' bill, well.....I hope that the SNP will recruit more police officers and beef up the legal system to cope with all the extra work it is likely to cause. I think it's going to mean a lot of wasted police time at the very least.

I've been in Scotland for 5 years now and, you know what, for all it's beauty, heritage, architecture etc, it's becoming a bloody awful place to live. It's sectarian and incredibly divided.

I do not trust the SNP with women's rights at all. Joking away on twitter about chosing your cell mate now was not how I imagined my middle age.... There are good reasons why the sectarian bill was needed but this bill is apalling. PLUS no indication of whether the offended can be outside Scotland.. I'm envisioning a world where those 14 year old anime cartoon toting kids in the Midwest can not only get Gillian Philips fired from her writing job but also be able to bring hate crimes prosecutions for 'offense'. Uniting the Orange Lodge, Catholic Church, National Secular Society, Law Society, Police against a bill is freakign SPECTACULAR.

If you were to say a trans man is not a real man or trans woman is not a real woman, you would not be prosecuted under the bill that I am intending to bring forward, so long as you didn’t do it in a threatening or abusive way
that is intended or likely to stir up hatred,” he told Holyrood magazine

So I say "Transwomen are not women. Women have XX Chromosomes."
they say "How dare you say I don't exist, transphobe! You're stirring up hate against me"

I get 7 years in jail for saying that biology trumps feels?

so long as you didn’t do it in a threatening or abusive way that is intended or likely to stir up hatred

In other words, JKR could find herself prosecuted. Because the decisive factor here is not actually JKR's intent but how her words are received. Anyone expressing an opinion about anything is at the mercy of people who feel targeted by those words. There is no objective arbiter of what is abusive, offensive or threatening built into the law.

These are disingenuous weasel words by a politician who is seemingly either still not understanding his own law, or unwilling to acknowledge the issue.

I have reached the point now , given what happened due to Covid where I question the intelligence of anyone supporting separatism.

Yes a pre agreed set of people "allowed" to correctly sex individuals.

Cue dozens of court cases where staff from various organisations are put on trial trying to establish whether they were correct in it being relevant to their job?

What a bloody waste of everyone's time and money.

I remember a clip of JY calling the police in the lift and the 911 call handler called them sir . Think even the police will find themselves on the wrong side of this....

After all would off duty polkice officers or call handlers etc be done for hate speech etc...

The destination for this journey is to create magic words and phrases that no one can ever say, because someone will always be available to say they felt it "stirred up hatred" and that is that

How would this work in a medical situation. Its bad enough that drs and nurses already have to work on false information without some idiot in behind the curtain next door deciding that the drs questions/conversation was "hate" even if the victim doesn't victim exist as a victim in the alleged hare incident

I suspect when people say things like "oh, we'd never use that law this way" they are largely sincere. But it's incredibly naive.

If you were to say a trans man is not a real man or trans woman is not a real woman, you would not be prosecuted under the bill that I am intending to bring forward, so long as you didn’t do it in a threatening or abusive way
that is intended or likely to stir up hatred,” he told Holyrood magazine.

So, just to be clear, those words could get you arrested if someone thought that those words were likely to stir up hatred.

independence first

I was all for Yes, and Scottish independence. Have voted that way for the past few elections. In fact, these latest ridiculous, inept and manipulative moves from the SNP have convinced me that Independence would be a potential disaster.

I don't trust a word the SNP say, it's all smoke and mirrors to try and make themselves look good - behind the screens we're getting nasty, vicious back-stabbing attacks like the one on Joanna Cherry, highly dubious moves like Salmond's court case, etc. I think they've massively over-estimated their ability and the commitment to independence.

They can't even have a proper 'consultation' without trying to manipulate, preach and malign people. Unfortunately we have no decent opposition here.