If you’re deluded enough to suppose that human history works in a progressive linear fashion, the example of Scotland should swiftly change your mind. Once the home of the Enlightenment, the country has now veered into authoritarianism under the control of the SNP. The party’s new hate crime law will come into force on April Fools’ Day, and no-one in government is seemingly able to give examples of “crimes” that would be covered by this legislation that aren’t already criminal. When specifically asked on the BBC’s Newsnight whether “misgendering” would result in prosecution, SNP backbench Fulton MacGregor could only mutter: “Well, it depends on the circumstances”. How reassuring.
For all MacGregor’s “faith” that the law would be “properly” implemented, nonbelievers are right to be cautious. Vaguely worded legislation is bound to be exploited, and has been many times in the past. This is particularly the case when it comes to “hate speech”, a concept for which no adequate definition has ever been achieved. The best the Irish government could muster for their forthcoming hate crime bill is that hatred “means hatred”. In these times of slippery authoritarian wordplay, that’s about as specific as we can expect.
The Scottish police have claimed that they will not “target” comedians and actors under the new legislation, and yet at the same time have sworn to investigate every complaint. Thankfully, activists never make spurious complaints against their ideological opponents in the hope of seeing them silenced. Oh wait. They do. All the time.
I’ll be performing in Edinburgh on the first of April - the very day that the new law comes into force - in a Comedy Unleashed special event. The “Hate Monster” will also be making an appearance, so we shall see if the police will turn up to arrest their own mascot. But we also have Markus Meechan on the bill (aka Count Dankula) who has some experience of what it feels like to be hauled through the Scottish courts for a joke. And given the possibility that it might happen again, I thought it might be a good opportunity to revisit his peculiar case for those who aren’t familiar.
In my book The New Puritans – which is sadly becoming more relevant by the day – I wrote about the Meechan affair as a kind of tipping point, the moment when many of us realised that free speech was considered dispensable by those in authority. We had, it seemed, been taking this most fundamental of democratic principles for granted, and the political class had other ideas. If someone could be found guilty for an obvious joke, couldn’t this kind of legislation be used against any of us, and for any reason at all?
Meechan’s joke was explained even in the video itself. “My girlfriend is always ranting and raving about how cute and adorable her wee dog is”, he says, “so I thought I would turn him into the least cute thing that I could think of, which is a Nazi”. The sketch shows the pug watching a televised Hitler speech, lifting its paw in a Nazi salute when it hears “Sieg Heil”, and reacting excitedly to the phrase “gas the Jews”. And while this is undeniably a disturbing phrase, its impact is somewhat mitigated when addressed to a squat-faced pooch.
The idea that Nazis would be happy with Meechan transforming their Führer into canine form is almost as laughable as the joke itself. In fact, we can be certain of this, given that the Nazi regime in 1941 investigated a dog-owner in Finland for precisely the same offence. Tor Borg had trained his Dalmatian to raise its paw in response to the word “Hitler”. The Gestapo eventually dropped the charges, but the Scottish police are apparently not so lenient.
So for all of the claims that our concerns about the new hate crime law are unfounded, and that the police would never prosecute anyone for a gag, we should remember that they already have. This legislation will simply make it easier for activists within and without the police force to weaponise the law against those deemed to be subversive. On the day of Meechan’s arrest, one police officer affirmed that he must be “an actual Nazi trying to inspire people to become Nazis”. The judge eventually agreed, in spite of the fact that after two years of investigation the police had uncovered no evidence of far-right sympathies.
Of course those who wish to criminalise dissent will not stop at comedians. They’ll also be keen to crack down on anyone who knows the difference between men and women and is willing to declare this esoteric knowledge out loud. Although it has become a cliché to cite George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in such circumstances, that is only because it is so apposite: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command”.
I do not sincerely believe that the police will turn up at our Comedy Unleashed show next Monday. It seems unfathomable that we might see a kind of re-enactment of the closing scenes of The Blues Brothers, with police officers standing in the shadows of the club to monitor the show for heterodox content. But then, I would never have anticipated that in a free country someone who made a video mocking Nazis would end up with a criminal record. Of course our show will be offensive to those who choose to be offended. Such is the nature of comedy. The only way to avoid such a situation would be for the acts to stand on stage in total silence. And even then, someone might find this offensive to mutes.
So I’ll leave you with this documentary I presented for Spiked back in 2018: The Curious Case of the Nazi Pug. When I made this film, I assumed that Markus’s case was an aberration, and that society would right itself again soon enough. Instead, the Scottish government has passed draconian new legislation to make this kind of miscarriage of justice far more likely in the future.
At least they didn’t arrest the dog.
They probably won't come for Comedy Unleashed just yet. It's too big and well known and would put a massive amplifier on the consequences of this law.
They'll test the waters first on a few small fish, including start up comedians, school projects and the like. People need to have their thressholds recalibrated to what is considered acceptable.
I sincerely hope they come first for you and people like J.K. Rowling though. Sorry to say this, but the backlash would be what is needed to bin this kind of legislation. The longer they put off coming for the big names, the more dangerous it gets.
God, how depressingly portentous your Spiked doco turned out to be. Your sign-off line, however... * chef's kiss *