UK ‘Hate Crime’ List Now Includes ‘Speak English’

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UK 'Hate Crime' List Now Includes 'Speak English' 1

Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of England and he of ‘Two Tier’ policing fame, has yet more dishonor to heap on what is supposed to be his British plate, although that is increasingly questionable.

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Early in his term (back in September 2024), the PM and his ruling party introduced something called ‘Respect Orders.’ Labour had always promised something of this ilk were they ever to grasp the reins of power again, and the racial unrest over the summer of ’24 after the slaughter of three little girls at a Taylor Swift-themed party in late July gave them the perfect excuse to implement the long-dreamt-of measures.

They were ostensibly meant to ‘clamp down on hooligans.’ You know, because of their ‘anti-social behavior.’

New Respect Orders will see repeat perpetrators of anti-social behaviour subject to tough restrictions on their behaviour.

Hooligans who wreak havoc on local communities will face tough restrictions under new powers announced by the Home Secretary today.  

Meeting a manifesto pledge to crack down on anti-social behaviour, the new Respect Orders will give the police and local councils powers to ban persistent offenders from town centres or from drinking in public spots such as high streets and local parks, where they have caused misery to local people. These will be piloted prior to national rollout to make sure they are as effective as possible.

Perpetrators can also be required to address the root cause of their behaviour by being mandated to undertake positive rehabilitation, such as attending drug or alcohol treatment services, or an anger management course to address the underlying causes of their behaviour. 

Failure to comply with Respect Orders will be a criminal offence. Police will have the ability to immediately arrest anybody who is breaching their Respect Order.

Police will also be given stronger powers to seize vehicles involved in anti-social behaviour will also be strengthened, with officers no longer required to issue a warning before seizing the vehicles which bring misery to local communities.

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With these orders still not completely formulated yet, police received an awful lot of latitude in determining who was a hooligan and what constituted ‘anti-social.’

This, coupled with Britain’s hate speech, has led law enforcement exactly where people feared the government would go – not after criminals but after citizens who have a problem with the government. Or, oftentimes, citizens who simply won’t fall in line with the new dystopian rules of British conduct in society as set forth by their overlords in Whitehall.

Some ‘respect order’ enforcement has been crackbrained with potentially life-altering prison sentences attached if one violates the step system of infraction penalties for, among other things, feeding the birds.

…If these orders aren’t working, it’s not because they are insufficiently ‘tough’. A civil injunction is issued through a court, and although violation is not in itself a criminal offence, it carries a ‘contempt of court’ penalty that can mean imprisonment for up to two years. Violation of a CPN or a dispersal order is also a criminal offence. Breaching a dispersal order carries a punishment of up to three months in prison, while breaching a CPN carries a maximum £2,500 fine.

Furthermore, if a (Community Protection Notice) CPN or dispersal order is violated, a person can then be issued with a criminal behaviour order (CBO), which carries an unlimited fine and up to five years in prison. (One pensioner I am in touch with has been threatened with five years in prison for feeding birds on his local beach, which violates the terms of his CBO.)

…It seems likely that the respect order will carry a criminal sanction, and be arrestable. But beyond that, respect orders remain something of a mystery. Will the orders go through the courts, or be issued on the spot? Will the standard for issue be the same as the civil injunction (harassment, alarm or distress) or the same as the CPN (detrimental effect on a community’s quality of life)? Will the respect order replace any existing orders or be introduced alongside them?

In many ways, the respect order captures well the political impulse driving the expansion of behaviour-control orders over the past 25 years. They are principally a PR exercise. They exist to show that politicians are doing something to solve something. They suggest that the answer to every problem is a shiny new, tougher power, with a new name.

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No one knows what happens after they pile on the fines and acronyms. Or who takes over after that.

And instead of going after the knife-wielders, they are criminalizing the pigeon feeders, leaflet distributors, and kite-flyers.

…Activities are being criminalised today that do not harm anyone, and do not cause significant public nuisance. The very definition of ‘crime’ has been re-defined and trivialised. Rather than categorising actions that seriously interfere with others, criminal actions can refer to behaviour that annoys or offends, or has a ‘detrimental effect’ on their life.

…Indeed, personalised legal orders (such as Community Protection Notices or Civil Injunctions, also introduced as part of Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act) impose personal legal codes upon individuals. These mean that somebody could be fined or even imprisoned for an anodyne action such as entering a prohibited area, looking at their neighbour or sleeping in public.

Formerly common activities like handing out leaflets must be licensed, and speech is being rigorously controlled.

…Another form of control is the codification of everyday life, whereby our conduct is guided by artificial rulebooks or codes. We have speech codes to tell us what words to use, and child-protection codes to tell us how to conduct ourselves around children, including rules for the way we stand with or talk to children. Here, decency is not about good intentions or respect for other people. Instead, to be a good person now means to obey formal behavioural rules, from using the prescribed language to adhering to the correct ‘safeguarding’ protocols. To use your common sense, or to act spontaneously, is seen as ‘unsafe’. The phrases ‘safe touch’, ‘safe sports’, ‘safe campuses’ or ‘safe sex’ all designate areas of life that are now to be conducted according to official rules.

Officialdom’s power over our everyday language is particularly pronounced. The use of certain words (regardless of intention or meaning) has become subject to control and sanction, and different (artificial) words are proposed as alternatives. Both our free relations, and also our free judgement, are held to be toxic and dangerous.

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And now the threat to the little freedom Brits have left is going to become even worse if legislation allowing courts  to issue ‘respect orders’ now in the works becomes law.

The UK government’s Crime and Policing Bill poses a formidable threat to free speech in the UK. The bill, which is currently at the committee stage in the House of Commons, promises to keep our streets ‘safe’ by giving courts a new power to issue ‘respect orders’. These orders are potentially so draconian and wide-ranging that they could well end up being used for very different purposes – including silencing anyone who says anything online that the authorities disapprove of.

Again, under the guise of ‘for the children’ and ‘against the hoodlums’ to ‘make the streets safe,’ any court could be petitioned to sanction someone who made life uncomfortable for a local official. England is already a country where a Facebook post can land you in jail or, at the very least, garner you a visit from the cops. God forbid you fire off an angry email to a schoolboard member or city council type. You are so done for. But it looks to get worse.

…This bill is a particular threat to free speech. Already, you have to worry that police might turn up at your door over a controversial social-media post. At least at present, the poster has a reasonable chance of defending themselves. While our hate-speech laws are vaguely worded and authoritarian, at least the onus is on the authorities to investigate and prosecute.

This changes dramatically under the Crime and Policing Bill. If it passes, all the police would have to do is persuade a county court judge that people are distressed by the post in question. Then, the poster can be compelled, on pain of prosecution, to delete the offending content, not refer to the subject concerned online again and even stay off social media altogether. They might even be forced to provide an official with the passwords to all of their internet-enabled devices.

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This is already a country where being a partially deaf older man who can’t understand what someone with a heavy accent said to him gets a threatening visit from police over telling that person to ‘Speak clearly’ as they investigate him for committing a possible hate crime. 

Because the immigrant he was trying to understand reported the elderly man said, ‘Speak ENGLISH‘ when he dimed him out to police.

So what if he had told the foreigner to ‘Speak English’ in, of all places, England?

I guess we know how that would have turned out.

Better behave. 

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