If you tell people with an axe to grind that a grindstone exists, that it is free to use and that, moreover, they should use it, it should not come as a surprise when that’s exactly what they do. How Scotland’s Hate Crime Act has backfired spectacularly. 🧵 #HateCrime

It’s true that less has changed than many think. But that’s due to a Scottish Government and Police Scotland communications strategy so hopeless that the Hate Monster campaign to promote the law gifted its opponents a new, instantly recognisable Scottish cultural icon.

That a lot of the controversial things already existed isn’t the issue. Most people had no idea that there was a network of third party reporting centres (including the sex shop) where they could file an anonymous report against anyone, alleging a hate crime. Now they do.

Most people had no idea the police were promising to record every report as a hate incident even if it didn’t involve criminal behaviour, based solely on the perception of the person filing the report, which shouldn’t be challenged. But they do now.

And that’s how, a week after the Hate Crime Act came into force, we’ve reached the point where a Scottish Government minister is having to condemn his father for posting on social media an image of a swastika within a Star of David after police initially refused to investigate.

If new laws are necessary, they need to be framed in a way that can be defended coherently and policed with consent. The politicians who backed this deeply flawed legislation failed to do that. They created a monster and it is consuming them.

@newsandpics That is possibly even worse. What is probably required are lots of new political parties & politicians, whose main concern is to attend to the basic concerns of the populations they promise to serve. And the swift relegation of this ridiculous law to the dustbin of history.