The return of recording 'non-crime' and 'lawful but harmful' legislation

[Signalbox]

It's being reported that Labour are set to change police guidance that limits the recording of NCHI and is planning to 'significantly expand police powers to monitor and make records of supposedly hateful speech'. It's as if Miller v College of policing never happened.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/08/28/the-dreadful-return-of-the-non-crime-hate-incident/

In addition to this there is talk of the Government reconsidering bringing in 'controversial powers (previously scrapped by the Tories) to force internet companies to remove 'legal but harmful' content'.

https://archive.ph/NYJg5#selection-2369.0-2369.133

Is anyone else at all worried about these developments? There is every chance that these measures will affect those who want to talk openly about sex/gender/women's rights etc. The current Labour Government appear to be going very quickly down a road of censorship, increased surveillance of the public and lack of support for freedom of speech.

This is concerning. I think the FSU has begun action. Letter to help you write to your MP:

x.com/speechunion/status/1828809764706320835?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

freespeechunion.org/labours-war-on-free-speech/

They've also got this thread saying that the government thinks Ofcom should have "emergency powers". Would also include powers for the government to issue a direction to Ofcom including in times of threats to health to the public:

x.com/speechunion/status/1828499437330608375?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Given that Mark Zuckerberg has admitted censoring content at the behest of the government - no powers apparently needed - this should be very frightening news all round:

x.com/judiciarygop/status/1828201780544504064?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Everyone should resist these changes, regardless of personal allegiances or party politics.

Not sure what the archive link it for in OP (need to make sure the URL doesn't have a selection tag on it) but is it for the Telegraph article?

If so then think / hope this archive link works https://archive.is/oYOxC

Original article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/27/hate-crime-measures-back-agenda-despite-fears-free-speech/

Yvette Cooper faces legal battle over restoring hate crime measures.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/744d8705-84be-4def-8647-b4329d58202e?shareToken=eafa3e8e015c0f62f1cc37c809f56e888_

We’ll just have to report MPs for everything they say & do until they get fed up with it.

Surely the cops are too busy with knife crime and riots and 2 dead women a week at the hands of their male partners to record feisty tweets?

The unequivocal view at The Times

The Times view on recording hate offences: Surveillance State.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/3d9e5f26-f39e-4f40-bb9f-2b094ce0f3bb?shareToken=59f51d8678d8b02b9cf5df49653388eee_

Oh, fuck.

I had been worried about exactly this.

Those in E&W can look to Scotland to see how this has gone down. Thankfully, the law was effectively skewered immediately by JK Rowling and a politician, but it remains on the books.

isn't this one of those things that wouldn't be happening under our shiny new government?

Archive version of both Times articles.

https://archive.ph/FRPxS

https://archive.ph/hg99d

"Non-crime” is a legal obscenity, suggesting a ­liminal status between criminality and innocence. If the police cannot prove that an offence has been committed they have no right to bestow that nebulous label on innocent people by storing potentially untrue and defamatory information about them. Inclusion on a police database is a sanction, implying a potential for criminality. It should be used sparingly, in situations of high risk, such as terrorism, and strictly limited in duration by law.

👏👏👏👏👏

It's beginning to look like Labour's learnt a few lessons from how China dealt with dissenting voices in Hong Kong. 👎🤐

My Lord, they really are aspirant totalitarians, aren’t they?

I knew it would be bad, but this is surpassing expectations.

Well, Tony Blair was hot on 'pre-crime'.

It has been evident for quite some time that Starmer is an authoritarian intent on implementimg radical and totalitarian change. You only had to look at the way he handled any disagreements or conflicts with backbenchers or troublesome left wingers; as well, of course, as his determination to 'modernise' the GRA in spite of all contrary evidence.

Underneath the wishy-washy persona - lies a steely determination.

My feeling is that they want central control over all manner of social isues, but want to out-source responsibility for economic decisions to other bodies.

And, of course, who decides what constitutres legal but harmful? What of the multitudes of pro transition web sites and organisations encouraging children into gender identity with its subsequent harms and interventions?

The nation, or at least a small percentage of the nation, has willingly elected an authoritarian Marxist government, and this is the result.

Well so far they're fulfilling my worst fears (Wes Streeting being the exception)

Labour are like a dog with a bone.

Beatings will continue until morale improves, I suppose.

Labour are going to force every person onto the right side of history if they have to damn well kill them trying.

My brother had a textbook with the title Absolutism and Enlightenment. I think it was about European history at a time when monarchs believed themselves to be Benevolent or Enlightened Despots (Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Charles III of Spain) transitioning to the Age of Reason and the spread of enlightenment philosophy which asserted that each individual had natural rights and that the responsibility of the government was to protect and reaffirm those rights.

I am feeling an unpleasant traction into the age of self-styled enlightened despots.

Perhaps consider some reading on Marxism - and the political spectrum - before throwing the term around. This is classic scare-mongering.

so far at least

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/01/academic-free-speech-law-labour?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

“There are other signs that Labour might be too quick to frame free speech as one side of a partisan culture war rather than a substantive issue. Last week, the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced that she wanted to reverse changes that mean police officers should only record individuals engaging in “non crime hate incidents” if they are motivated by intentional hostility and there is a clear risk of escalation into harm or criminality.

A government source implied that this was somehow Conservative ministers choosing to downgrade the monitoring of racial hatred; in fact, it was an important protection required by the courts that found the police have used “non crime hate incidents” to unlawfully police citizens’ free speech.

Free speech is neither a “nice to have” nor a rightwing project: it is a fundamental tenet of democracy and when it is under threat, it is disempowered minorities who suffer most. Labour needs to stop seeing important free speech protections introduced by Tory ministers as expendable fuel for attacking their predecessors.”

Totally agree this is a chilling development. How to protest? It wasn’t in their manifesto of course. I write to my(Labour) MP but he seems totally uninterested in anything I have to say.

I feel like Starmer has just got his 'Little Book of When I Am King' that he wrote when he was 8, out of his parent's attic and is just going through it page by page banning everything he doesn't like.

Canada is where this government is aiming for. It was blatantly obvious long before the election.

This is how Starmer "ends the culture war on day 1". By frightening people into silence