How can you speak out about the problems if you end up in the klink for 3 years for meanwords.
Very
carefully.
I'm not even joking.
Coded language, vague-posting, and not being too performative or emotive when you say something is how you do it.
You can deny the holocaust happened, even publicly, so long as you don't:
1. Say it directly to a Jewish person. (Harrassment) (The annoying thing about how this can get defined is that if you say something publically online, you intend for it to be seen, thus you intent it to be seen by a Jewish person with the intent to make them uncomfortable. It might actually do you a service if you elaborate on why than just saying "it didn't happen" as a matter of fact)
2. Use it as basis for action. (Incitement) (Depending on how strictly you define it, the simple statement of "Holocaust = fake" might be enough on its own but probably not)
These vague conditions are why Starmer can feel like the statement "Britain has free speech" don't feel like an outright lie.
Under the law, the "set fire to hotels" + "take the government/politicians with them" are what got her arrested. She admits there's a racial element to her characterisation of the hotel's residents, "if it makes me racist," and the fact it's with an emotional furore makes it open and shut in the eyes of our law... It's a fucking tweet by an angry house wife with no actionable means or mass following to carry out what she said. The fact she deleted it it tells us she regrets posting it, and I don't think she even got a call from the police to do so, she did it of her own volition. I don't need to go over why it's retarded since everyone here has probably already made some of their own or seen plenty already.
Still, when you compare us to our neighbours, I think we're a smidge better off. The EU mandates its members pass some form of
hate speech legislation as of 2008, though there have been cases countries have just ignored it or done a bad job of it, such as Hungary or Latvia. This is why if you're in the EU, you either need to leave it to get true freedom of speech or just, I dunno, ignore it.
Regardless, the fact the migrant hotels issue has become so widespread means that any remarks pertaining to them and people inside actually help delegitimise any claims of implicit racial/religious harassment from individuals (I'll touch on this in a mo') since it makes all statements pertaining to Muslims and immigrants apart of the political discourse and ergo "safe". It's not complete Teflon to the law, but it's why people can now openly call for remigration and shit on Muslims (as a group), whilst also stressing the importance of English culture and race, and all without being immediate grounds for arrest. It also helps when political figures talk about it, since normalisation effectively launders it of intent to harass or cause unrest.
Regarding free speech the process of fixing it is thankfully less painful compared to immigration.
The big 3 are:
1.
Public Order Act 1986 - passed by the Conservatives in response to a bunch of union strikes, riots,
actual faggot hippies, etcetera. This is one of those things should serve as an example of why trying to silence and restrict your opposition in the present via the law might seem like a good move, but it can quickly bite you in the ass and get used against you in turn. This act did make harassment and distress illegal, but under its original definition one could reason it had to be wholly targeted at a specific individual, not just vague descriptions. It was amendment in 2006 with the
Racial and Religious Hatred Act, which made stirring up religious or racial hatred with
intention punishable offences. I emphasised
intention because originally that was absent from the bill entirely, so any words which could be conceivably hateful of religion or race would be enough to get you a visit from the plod. They also had the word "insulting" in there too. Thank
fuck for the House of Lords. Lesson here is: don't use a weapon on your enemy they can just as easily turn on you later.
2.
Protection from Harassment Act 1997 - passed by the Conservatives in yet another parallel to today (Online Safety Act actually descends from an attempted age check implementation in 2017 in response to
Molly Russell), with criticisms of the act back also mirroring those in the present, is why you can get the police phoned on you for perceived harassment by the accuser. Labour actually amended this in 2005 for it to require 2 instances of harassment, but the vague wording of "causing distress" means said harassment doesn't need to be targeted, in theory. Also if there's a non-public figure whose guilty of some shit, drawing attention to said person might be grounds to get you arrested. This act is the main catalyst for how/why Tommy Robinson gets arrested, this his documentaries and whatnot are percieved on either grounds of incitement or harassment.
The only asterisk to this I can give is that getting a visit for harassment is more likely to end up with a slap on the wrist than any actual jailtime or fine, but the fact you'll still be asked to take down posts because some schizo has perceived your words to be implicitly aimed at them is still massively retarded. However, once Labour added the amendment to the Public Order Act in 2006, it a conviction rate of less than half was now
over half.
3.
Equality Act 2010 - passed by Labour in 2010, a going away present alongside CRAG 2010. Protects against "discrimination, harassment, or victimisation" in public or private based on any and all characteristics - race, gender, religion, nationality/citizenship. The last one is paying dividends today because this act alongside some fuckery with the NHS in '06 or '07 is effectively why there's no immigration checks on people wanting to use public services or employment. Luckily requiring stuff like National Insurance numbers prevents employment in more official capacities but Deliveroo/Uber more or less get proof of your citizenship through the bank account they pay into, but since people are actively helping the illegals and the government gives you an account in which they pay money into, this act can bind their hands in what they can actually do. They can't "discriminate" when employing, but they can maybe forward on reports that X-account is just an illegal's burner.
The act is also specifically worded to be in detriment to white-only or white male-only spaces whilst protecting minority ones. You can't have a men's only club (unless it was grandfathered in), but there's no obligations for Muslims to permit women into their spaces. You can create employment or training programs which specifically exclude whites, but no reverse (obviously). Political can use "protected characteristics" in their selection criteria, which allows for the creation of shortlists that specifically exclude white men.
The biggest damage of this act though is the harassment and discrimination shit. The fact we have 3 laws which compound the same thing — harassment is super-duper illegal — is why the UK police are more publicly zealous about preventing it than other places. Incitement
is illegal in the USA, but it's primarily based on a supreme court ruling, so there's not a ton of fervour. The big issue, as
@Muad'Dick pointed out and most here already agree on, is the lack of bottle from the ruling parties to simply do away with it. The biggest issue I see with dealing with these acts is that repealing isn't on the table for most of them due to optics-concern.
"They abolished equality?!" "They legalised harassment!?" "They no longer want to keep order in the streets?!"
I think if Reform get in we'll definitely get some kind of free speech legislation. In fact, it's probably the only positive you can be certain of, since their viability regarding immigration is very suspect. However if these acts exist as backstop, I fear any pro-free speech act will get repealed in the future and just revert back to these.
