Totalitarian hate speech bill: what on earth is happening to Scotland under the SNP?

Who remembers Pavlik Morosov, child-hero of the Soviet Union, a model for the nation’s youth? Briefly put, the boy denounced his father for anti-Soviet activity. The father was either sent to the Gulag or shot – both versions of events being plausible at the time – and then Pavlik was murdered by anti-Soviet reactionaries or indignant members of his own family. The details are unimportant, and not only because research since the collapse of the USSR has demonstrated that the official story was a propaganda fabrication.

It was certainly a successful one. Pavlik did become the model Soviet child, featured on posters, in a film and even opera. He was the subject of lessons in school. Statues of him, looking attractive in his Pioneers’ uniform, were set up and at least one museum was devoted to his story. The great writer Maxim Gorky, lured back to Russia from his home on Capri, dutifully declared that “The memory of him must never vanish.”

In learning about Pavlik, Soviet children were being taught that duty to the Party and the State took precedence over all other duties. If a father or other member of the family engaged in anti-Soviet activity or employed anti-Soviet language, then a true Soviet child should denounce him to the authorities. Like every cult and dictatorial regime, these authorities regarded the family as at least potentially subversive.

If I now find myself thinking of Pavlik Morosov, it’s because of the Anti-Hate Bill which the SNP’s Justice Minister Humza Yousaf is piloting through the Scottish Parliament. The main body of the Bill may be no more objectionable than already existing laws that police public discourse. That is to say, the interpretation of the significance of what is said or written is open to argument in the law-courts, and one can usually trust sheriffs and High Court judges to take a reasonable view of what has been said or written. Likewise, a jury of peers would also be present to help pass judgment, if the accused has opted for a jury trial, as may be done in the Sheriff Court.

Yet one of Mr Yousaf’s proposals is pernicious. He would extend the criminalisation of speech from the public to the private space, even to conversations around the family table. This not only goes much further than the existing Public Order Act, which criminalised “hate-talk”, it permits the extension of the police power of the State into family life.

Let us admit first that the home is not as inviolate as it once was, and police and social workers are far more ready to interfere in family life than used to be the case. The days when police were reluctant to act in what was regarded as a “domestic” sphere are long gone and nobody of sense can regret this. Likewise, we recognise that Health visitors and Social Department officials have a duty to act when there is reason to think that children are suffering from neglect or abuse, even though we also realise that allegations of ill-treatment may be brought by neighbours more motivated by malice than decent concern.

Yousaf’s proposal not only threatens a new invasion of private life; it is different in kind to what has come before. It does not deal with assault, neglect or sexual abuse, only with language and the expression of opinion in a dwelling-place. And how can such language or opinions be brought to the attention of the law except by a report brought by someone who was present when the “offensive” words were spoken. That is to say, a member of the family, a friend, or guest is being encouraged by the State to act as a spy and informer.

Suppose – just suppose – that someone angered by some action or policy of the Scottish Government says, “That Sturgeon should have been strangled at birth”, an outrageous remark of course and possibly sexist, unless the speaker is a woman; I also suppose that it is a remark that is capable, even if un-calculated, of stirring up hate. Comparable remarks have doubtless made about other politicians, Margaret Thatcher for example, and made with impunity, just as nobody at a dinner in England will feel the heavy hand of the law if he remarks that he will cheer on anyone who punches Boris Johnson on the nose.

But suppose that here, in the SNP’s Scotland, a young person present at the table tells the teacher what her grandfather has said: what next?

Well, we are entering Pavlik Morosov territory, a place where children are encouraged by the State to practise informing, to act as what we used to call “coppers’ narks”, a place where friends are invited to betray trust, a place where even in what should be the privacy of the home, you must guard your tongue or risk being questioned by the police and charged with a hate crime.

O Brave New Scotland that has such people in it!

Incidentally I have read – though I forget where and it may not of course be true – that Stalin himself once called Pavlik, the model Soviet young citizen, “a nasty little sneak”.

If this clause in Yousaf’s bill survives to become the law of the land, Scotland will be a sneak’s paradise, where malice meets with the approval of the State. When I was a boy long ago someone who reported misdemeanours to the teacher was called a “clype” and it was a shameful thing to be known as. Now clypes are to be encouraged and praised, anonymous writers of denunciations regarded as good citizens. It is to be a country fit for Pavlik Morosovs, one where there may be a prize for The Clype of the Year. And that’s before we even reach the Promised Land of Independence. God help us.