This morning Sunny Hundal, the Editor of the left-wing blog Liberal Conspiracy, announced that after 8 years of blogging he was no longer going to be up-dating the site.
Over the last few years, Liberal Conspiracy was kind enough to publish a series of my articles. These included:
Liberal Conspiracy has given me a platform to write about issues that I am passionate about. It also provided me with a wealth of interesting articles to read and learn about.
It will be missed.
In an industry that focuses so much on negative attacks and smears, I thought it only right then to publicly thank Sunny and everyone else over at Liberal Conspiracy for everything they have achieved over the last 8 years. They have often provided a positive left-wing alternative voice in opposition to the dominant mainstream media of the day. As I said, this will be missed.
Last month the home secretary Theresa May announced that the government was ‘not minded‘ to challenge a House of Lords amendment removing the word ‘insulting’ from Section 5 of the Public Order Act.
As Rowan Atkinson commented, “The clear problem of the outlawing of insult is that too many things can be interpreted as such. Criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, merely stating an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy, can be interpreted as insult”
This change in law is a victory for freedom of speech in the UK.
There remains, however, an important limiting role for the law to play. That role is to provide protection to those who are victims of threatening or abusive behaviour.
In 2011 I blogged saying that, “We all hold the right to live without fear or intimidation. This has to be legally separated, however, from being ‘insulted”.
The distinction has finally been acknowledged by the government and the change in the law later in the year is now just a formality.
It is worth noting, though, that even with this change in law, the discussion about what constitutes threatening behaviour compared to ‘insulting’ behaviour will remain. There is a considerable grey area around what the law should interpret to be ‘threatening’ and what it should view as merely ‘insulting’.
For example, ‘My Tram Experience’ – a video showing a vile torrent of racist abuse on a south London tram – sparked two very different interpretations.
With the change in law however, the police are some way towards having a clear distinction to follow. We are no longer asking them to be the judge of what behaviour is deemed ‘insulting’, at least.
“My Tram Experience” is an ugly snippet of life in the UK. It is an example of unashamed racism that we should all be eager to condemn. Sunny Hundal (editor of Liberal Conspiracy and comments is free columnist) was quick to join in this condemnation, that was until he saw the ferocious backlash from the tweeting masses. In Sunny’s words, “Piers Morgan was calling for the woman to be deported, some asked for her to be locked up, while others said her child should be taken away. And those are only the printable responses”.
First on Twitter and then through a comments is free article Sunny made a valuable effort to counter this moral outrage. I won’t try and simplify his arguments but suggest you read his article in full here.
Sunny seemed to suggest that it was OK to be intimidated and threatened in public. I could not disagree more. I think it is right and proper that victims of aggression be afforded the protection of the law in such a situation. In this specific circumstance, the woman was clearly intimidating. Sunny’s argument that because she was sat down she didn’t pose a threat is a weak one. This argument would suggest you cannot be verbally intimidated. This is clearly not the case. Shouting “fucking paki” in the face of a Muslim (intimidation does not need to be accurate or PC) or “fucking fag” in the face of a gay man is verbal intimidation. To suggest otherwise is to undermine the terrible experiences that people have to endure on a daily basis.
This has to be separated off from simply holding unpleasant views. I can write all sorts of rubbish, as can our friends in the BNP. Their views play into a dangerous culture of hatred but should not be outlawed. My views play into a dangerous culture of self-righteous woolly lefties but should certainly not be outlawed. When I start sitting on trams and screaming abuse at anyone who reads the Daily Mail –that’s when my views become intimidating and are illegal. This is an important distinction.
Sunny asks in his article, “Do you really want to give police the willingness to arrest people simply for having an argument?” The answer is clearly no – but I do want to be protected from intimidating behaviour.
Secondly, he suggests the law does not help us challenge the wider problem of racism. Again, I would broadly agree – it is a blunt tool at best. What it does do however, is provide victims with recourse to justice. It can (or at least holds the potential to) give the victims as sense of closure. Although rock against racism (and the plethora of other social movements which have successfully changed attitudes) is as important as ever, suggesting a victim of race hate crime should go to a rock concert or join hope not hate is simply not sufficient. Victims, rightly or wrongly, look to the law to feel justice has been done. We have a responsibility to provide victims with the appropriate legislation. When Sunny point to the Race Relations Act and that it has only had a handful of prosecutions, we know this is a failure of the system and that legislation, not because the crimes are not being committed. The state has let down those who the Race Relations Act was designed to protect.
Finally, Sunny comments, “My fourth argument is simply this: I would rather a world where such incidents didn’t exist but the world will never be perfect. I would much prefer such racism to be open and visible because there are still far too many Westminster commentators who think racism is a thing of the past.” Again, I agree, but this does not mean we have to encourage it! I would rather these issues were in the open – but I am not going to put on a racist poetry evening for racists to come and express themselves at. In the same way, when a racist has clearly broken the law I am not going to go out of my way to argue they shouldn’t be arrested. For some reason Sunny will.
Hynd's Blog 
The removal of ‘insulting’ from Public Order Act is a victory for free speech
This article was written for Left Foot Forward.
MPs have confirmed that the word ‘insulting’ will be removed from Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986.
This is a major victory for an unlikely alliance of free speech campaigners including The Christian Institute, The National Secular Society and Rowan Atkinson.
Last month the home secretary Theresa May announced that the government was ‘not minded‘ to challenge a House of Lords amendment removing the word ‘insulting’ from Section 5 of the Public Order Act.
In the past Section 5 had been used against street preachers ‘insulting’ homosexuals and LGBT activists ‘insulting’ religious groups.
As Rowan Atkinson commented, “The clear problem of the outlawing of insult is that too many things can be interpreted as such. Criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, merely stating an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy, can be interpreted as insult”
This change in law is a victory for freedom of speech in the UK.
There remains, however, an important limiting role for the law to play. That role is to provide protection to those who are victims of threatening or abusive behaviour.
In 2011 I blogged saying that, “We all hold the right to live without fear or intimidation. This has to be legally separated, however, from being ‘insulted”.
The distinction has finally been acknowledged by the government and the change in the law later in the year is now just a formality.
It is worth noting, though, that even with this change in law, the discussion about what constitutes threatening behaviour compared to ‘insulting’ behaviour will remain. There is a considerable grey area around what the law should interpret to be ‘threatening’ and what it should view as merely ‘insulting’.
For example, ‘My Tram Experience’ – a video showing a vile torrent of racist abuse on a south London tram – sparked two very different interpretations.
I thought her behaviour was threatening and therefore called for her arrest, while bloggerSunny Hundal argued that she was simply being insulting.
With the change in law however, the police are some way towards having a clear distinction to follow. We are no longer asking them to be the judge of what behaviour is deemed ‘insulting’, at least.
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Tagged as Human rights, insulting, is it illegal to insult someone, Left Foot Forward, Public Order Act 1986, Section 5, Steve Hynd, Sunny Hundal