Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

I shall be brief. I listened with great interest to the last debate. The flaw in the discussions in the House is not the distinction between racial hatred and religious hatred. I do not think that there is a distinction worth making there. The error lies in the concept of what should be made illegal. I am the first to acknowledge that stirring up hatred is a thoroughly bad thing to do. It is quite wrong and immoral, but that does not mean that it should be illegal. When one is determining what is or is not to be made illegal, one must consider the consequences. The question that I ask myself is not whether what someone is doing is immoral or offensive, but whether it is disruptive to the state. I come to the conclusion that it becomes disruptive to the state only if the consequence of the emotion that has been whipped up is to cause serious peril to the state. That is why, in the course of a series of interventions on my hon. Friends and others, I have tried to associate the concept of hatred with conduct likely to cause violence or other criminal activity. I should like the House to stand back and to consider the definition of hatred, and to say that only that which is likely to cause illegal acts and violence to those who are being criticised should be rendered illegal. The fact that one may cause other people to be held in a state of hatred, moral contempt or whatever should not make the act illegal, albeit that I am the first to concede that it is immoral to do it. I hope that those in the other place will consider the definition of hatred, whether in the context of religious or racial hatred, so as only to outlaw—by which I mean to render criminally unlawful—those things that are likely to result in acts of violence or criminal activities.