RoyalCorgi,
Ref your statement (in part)
"But there isn't a law against wearing antagonistic badges."
I'm not too sure about that.
Looking up something the other day on the Crime Prosecution Service (CPS) website, I was struck by its page on 'hate' crime - which (apart from a specific offence of incitement to hatred) is worded in the law not as hate but as crime motivated by or demonstrating hostility or prejudice.
Thus the CPS website:
'The police and the CPS have agreed the following definition for identifying and flagging hate crimes:
"Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice, based on a person's disability or perceived disability; race or perceived race; or religion or perceived religion; or sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation or transgender identity or perceived transgender identity."
There is no legal definition of hostility so we use the everyday understanding of the word which includes ill-will, spite, contempt, prejudice, unfriendliness, antagonism, resentment and dislike. '
[my bold]
Astonishing. Unfriendliness! And therein lies the problem with this offence: the lack of definition and the vague woolly subjectivity and interpretation of hostility and prejudice which lends itself to stretching into non-criminal personal dispositions such as 'unfriendliness' or 'dislike'. And of course, antagonism.
It's fair to say the CPS does provide much more detailed guidance to prosecutors on legality and the step-by-step process of deciding whether to prosecute, which is a great deal more involved. They also have posted Public policy statements on hate crime, which I haven't read or at least not lately - it's a bit of a labyrinth and I've got bogged down in it before, going from section to section, far from what I intended.
The page I quoted from may be intended as a simplified statement of broad general explanation and drafted less tightly.
www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/hate-crime
But still...alarming, and as you noted, the Harry Miller case?