[quote R0wantrees]Atlantic long read article by Helen Lewis provides context:
'Scotland’s Feminist Schism
What happens when a political party has no viable opposition? It creates one from within.'
(extract)
"Sometimes, though, there is a clash between these new progressive values and liberalism’s older traditions, which emphasize free speech and robust debate. Take the recent Scottish Hate Crime Bill, which is—by American standards—extraordinarily illiberal. In its proposed form, Scots could be prosecuted for “stirring up hatred,” even if they had not intended to do so, and libraries and bookshops could be prosecuted for loaning or selling “inflammatory material.” Even speech within a private home could be subject to criminal sanctions.
These provisions were later watered down, but even so, some feminist campaigners in Scotland fear the law will further chill discussions of sex and gender. In March, Mary Gordon, a great-niece of the SNP’s founder, chalked a message on a government building in Edinburgh: “Women’s rights are not a hate crime.” Soon after, two uniformed police officers visited her house to warn her that she could be arrested for breach of the peace if she repeated the protest. The backlash to Rowling had already frightened many people and organizations away from any engagement with the subject: In July, a billboard reading only i [heart] jk rowling was removed from an Edinburgh train station because it was “political” and potentially offensive.
The gender wars have pushed disagreements within the SNP, which are rarely allowed to reach outsiders, into the public eye. Nothing has ever challenged the power of Queen Nicola—and the party’s reputation for lockstep unity—quite like this before. (The SNP even has rules that none of its junior politicians can criticize its policies or the leadership.) Joan McAlpine is the highest-profile feminist SNP dissident at Holyrood, the seat of the Scottish Parliament, while Joanna Cherry fulfills the same role at Westminster. Alongside more than 100 female members of the SNP, some of them anonymous, both signed a “Women’s Pledge” in the fall of 2019 addressed to Sturgeon, which stated: “We require single-sex spaces in order to be able to participate in public life. Put simply, for reasons of bodily boundaries and trauma, we cannot share female-only spaces with male people regardless of their personalities, dress sense, identities etc.” (continues)
www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/05/nicola-sturgeon-scotland-election/618790/[/quote]
R0wantrees "Sometimes, though, there is a clash between these new progressive values and liberalism’s older traditions, which emphasize free speech and robust debate. Take the recent Scottish Hate Crime Bill, which is—by American standards—extraordinarily illiberal. In its proposed form, Scots could be prosecuted for “stirring up hatred,” even if they had not intended to do so, and libraries and bookshops could be prosecuted for loaning or selling “inflammatory material.” Even speech within a private home could be subject to criminal sanctions.
Lets just say that what is currently happening in Scotland, along with past failed attempts at passing legislation in breach of human rights/EU competition law (as it was then) are garnering quite a bit of international interest amongst academics. Theres just so much materials.
Some of the advice that the SG is getting on potential legislative clashes with human rights seems...somewhat ambitious, and not particularly neutral.
But its a country of only 5 million people, with an inherited political and legal constitution still further weakened by lost rights through devolution and a weak press...its a perfect storm really. Very unprecedented in a modern western democracy.
What Scotland needs quite urgently is an independent, secondary chamber with real powers because clearly having a unicameral legislature is causing big problems.