Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

I shall do so briefly and shortly. In the meantime, new clause 2 does not remove the limb that requires specific intent. It simply makes clear that, irrespective of whether there is specific intent, the words, speech or expression must be"““such as to constitute a justification for violent acts””." It has the merit that, once introduced as a concept, many things that people say about others, including things that may be offensive, certainly insulting, but probably not threatening—threats in discourse have little place in a democratic society—would be defused. In Committee, we worried especially about insulting terms. My impression from contact with many members of secular and religious groups who have deep anxiety about the Bill—about 2,000 of them, in an impressive gathering, remarkable for its diversity, were demonstrating outside the House this afternoon—is that they would at least be reassured that their ability to express their dislike of other people’s beliefs or their views on the morality of others would be protected, even if some people might find it insulting and even if some idiot elsewhere in the country seized on it as a justification for doing something that the ordinary words used could not possibly justify. I challenge the Under-Secretary to explain why new clause 2 is unacceptable. It makes some progress towards achieving a measure of greater agreement about how to include safeguards in the Bill.