Lois McLatchie Miller is Senior Legal Communications Officer for ADF UK, a legal advocacy organisation that promotes freedom of speech.
Today’s authorities seem to be adopting Humpty Dumpty’s approach to definitions: “When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone,“it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” And ‘violence’ has been among the first terms to face remoulding.
On Saturday, an activist who was released from prison in 2019 after a 30 year sentence for attempted murder incited a rowdy activist crowd to violence. If they saw a TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist), they were instructed to: “punch them in the f***ing face.”
Clear incitement, to literal violence. Case closed?
Not quite. In a response to a complaint, the Metropolitan Police initially evaluated that, since holding a gender critical belief is not a protected category, and the speaker in question hadn’t been talking about a certain individual person, the speech was too vague to count as a hate crime.
So not a hate crime – understood. But what about, simply, a crime? Had they forgotten that incitement to violence has long been prohibited in international and domestic law, and that not every misdemeanour is intrinsically linked to identity politics?
In stark contrast, on a much quieter street in Birmingham in early March, six police officers showed up in force without hesitation to arrest Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, stood nearby an abortion facility, for her allegedly intimidating behaviour.
Was she yelling that women should be “punched in the f***ing face” too? No. Isabel was merely praying for women. Silently. In the privacy of her own head.
When voicing aggression in support of trans issues, freedom of speech wins out the day. But when it comes to a pro-life cause, even a silent thought is too much for our police to let slip.
Encouragingly, following public outcry, police reopened their investigation into the incitement to punch TERFs in the face – and the individual, who happens to have already served thirty years in prison for attempted murder, has been arrested.
Following the drama, Suella Braverman published a rallying cry for “common-sense” policing in ConservativeHome: “I want criminal justice from our officers, not social justice.”
It’s a good sign that the Home Secretary wants to get the police back to policing crime, not worrying about silly tweets or rainbow lanyards. But the police’s instincts in dealing so swiftly with Isabel, and so sluggishly with the trans activist, demonstrates a deeply-rooted ideological problem – one which will require serious, committed and intentional repair.
A great start would be reforming Section 5 of the Public Order Act, infamously used to censor harmless street preachers, comedians and others, to give far more clarity on the significance of the right to free speech.
The rules, and treatment, should be the same for us all, no matter what beliefs we’re voicing. Free speech is for everyone. Incitement to violence is for no-one.
The term “abuse” has similarly undergone the Humpty Dumpty treatment of late.
Under recently-revised official guidance for police and prosecutors, parents who refuse to pay for their 16-year-old child to undergo a gender transition – or to use the pronouns that their teenager demands on a changing daily basis – could be labelled and even prosecuted as “abusers”.
The same goes for a wife who doesn’t want to use her own funds to support her husband’s apparent transition from “he” to “she”.
The new guidance leaves parents vulnerable to prosecution in their role of guiding and helping their son or daughter to navigate social confusion. With fear of being labelled abusive and separated from their child, parents could be too fearful to act in the best interests of their child; lest their hormonal teenager reports them to a teacher in a fit of spite.
The supposition that charges of violence could fall on innocent people simply because of their beliefs is not far-fetched; it’s already occurring around the world.
In Mexico, two elected representatives have been convicted of “gender-based political violence” because they could not, in good conscience, manipulate the Spanish language to affirm that a trans activist politician causing chaos in parliament was a “she” and not a “he”.
In Finland, a long-standing MP is on trial for hate speech. She questioned her church’s sponsorship of the Helsinki Pride Parade. Her charge falls under the section on the Finish criminal code titled “War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity”.
It’s not only the accused who suffer when the dictionary is altered to fit the ideology of the day. It’s the real victims of real violence and abuse – real acts of brutality – who get undermined, discredited, and ignored in a wave of tell-tale stories about silly playground squabbles.
Silence isn’t violence. Internal prayer is no crime. Neither is asking questions about theology, nor being unable to affirm someone’s gender if you don’t believe that to be true.
Words have meaning and meanings have power. For all our sakes the police, of all people, should be the first to ensure definitions are tightly defined and protected.
Lois McLatchie Miller is Senior Legal Communications Officer for ADF UK, a legal advocacy organisation that promotes freedom of speech.
Today’s authorities seem to be adopting Humpty Dumpty’s approach to definitions: “When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone,“it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” And ‘violence’ has been among the first terms to face remoulding.
On Saturday, an activist who was released from prison in 2019 after a 30 year sentence for attempted murder incited a rowdy activist crowd to violence. If they saw a TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist), they were instructed to: “punch them in the f***ing face.”
Clear incitement, to literal violence. Case closed?
Not quite. In a response to a complaint, the Metropolitan Police initially evaluated that, since holding a gender critical belief is not a protected category, and the speaker in question hadn’t been talking about a certain individual person, the speech was too vague to count as a hate crime.
So not a hate crime – understood. But what about, simply, a crime? Had they forgotten that incitement to violence has long been prohibited in international and domestic law, and that not every misdemeanour is intrinsically linked to identity politics?
In stark contrast, on a much quieter street in Birmingham in early March, six police officers showed up in force without hesitation to arrest Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, stood nearby an abortion facility, for her allegedly intimidating behaviour.
Was she yelling that women should be “punched in the f***ing face” too? No. Isabel was merely praying for women. Silently. In the privacy of her own head.
When voicing aggression in support of trans issues, freedom of speech wins out the day. But when it comes to a pro-life cause, even a silent thought is too much for our police to let slip.
Encouragingly, following public outcry, police reopened their investigation into the incitement to punch TERFs in the face – and the individual, who happens to have already served thirty years in prison for attempted murder, has been arrested.
Following the drama, Suella Braverman published a rallying cry for “common-sense” policing in ConservativeHome: “I want criminal justice from our officers, not social justice.”
It’s a good sign that the Home Secretary wants to get the police back to policing crime, not worrying about silly tweets or rainbow lanyards. But the police’s instincts in dealing so swiftly with Isabel, and so sluggishly with the trans activist, demonstrates a deeply-rooted ideological problem – one which will require serious, committed and intentional repair.
A great start would be reforming Section 5 of the Public Order Act, infamously used to censor harmless street preachers, comedians and others, to give far more clarity on the significance of the right to free speech.
The rules, and treatment, should be the same for us all, no matter what beliefs we’re voicing. Free speech is for everyone. Incitement to violence is for no-one.
The term “abuse” has similarly undergone the Humpty Dumpty treatment of late.
Under recently-revised official guidance for police and prosecutors, parents who refuse to pay for their 16-year-old child to undergo a gender transition – or to use the pronouns that their teenager demands on a changing daily basis – could be labelled and even prosecuted as “abusers”.
The same goes for a wife who doesn’t want to use her own funds to support her husband’s apparent transition from “he” to “she”.
The new guidance leaves parents vulnerable to prosecution in their role of guiding and helping their son or daughter to navigate social confusion. With fear of being labelled abusive and separated from their child, parents could be too fearful to act in the best interests of their child; lest their hormonal teenager reports them to a teacher in a fit of spite.
The supposition that charges of violence could fall on innocent people simply because of their beliefs is not far-fetched; it’s already occurring around the world.
In Mexico, two elected representatives have been convicted of “gender-based political violence” because they could not, in good conscience, manipulate the Spanish language to affirm that a trans activist politician causing chaos in parliament was a “she” and not a “he”.
In Finland, a long-standing MP is on trial for hate speech. She questioned her church’s sponsorship of the Helsinki Pride Parade. Her charge falls under the section on the Finish criminal code titled “War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity”.
It’s not only the accused who suffer when the dictionary is altered to fit the ideology of the day. It’s the real victims of real violence and abuse – real acts of brutality – who get undermined, discredited, and ignored in a wave of tell-tale stories about silly playground squabbles.
Silence isn’t violence. Internal prayer is no crime. Neither is asking questions about theology, nor being unable to affirm someone’s gender if you don’t believe that to be true.
Words have meaning and meanings have power. For all our sakes the police, of all people, should be the first to ensure definitions are tightly defined and protected.