Offensive garments not allowed in the Chamber during sensitive debates

Slogan in video: Fans not criminals
Slogan in photograph: SNP Shame on you

No one expected the Offensive Behaviour and Threatening Communications Bill not to be voted into law yesterday, and so it came to pass. The Bill was voted in this afternoon. Also:

Today, the SNP-appointed Presiding Officer Tricia Marwick instructed Parliamentary security to prevent members of FAC entering the debating chamber of the Scottish Parliament. We intended to do no more than wear t-shirts spelling out the message 'FANS NOT CRIMINALS'. 

I joined up with this group outside the Scottish Parliament. We were led to a committee room by Hugh Henry MSP, who welcomed us to the debate: several MSPs also came to this room, including some of the Bill's supporters and a lively discussion ensued – more of a shouting match. It was clear that no understanding between the two sides would result, and in any case within ten minutes it was nearly time for the stage 3 debate. The MSPs drifted off and we were about to follow, when the message reached us that people wearing garments with slogans would not be admitted to the Chamber, although they would be admitted if the garments were removed.

It remains unclear exactly what actions, songs and so forth will be criminalised by the Bill – I heard one member offering the explanation that this was 'context-dependent'. This seems to offer little assurance to fans. Opponents of the ban point out how few people have been arrested over the years. The test is whether 'reasonable people' might find specific behaviour or songs offensive. Since so few people have been arrested for so-called sectarian offences at football matches over the last 30 years, many 'reasonable people' might find it hard to identify many offensive actions or remarks. It seems that the trend is to make crimes out of actions and utterances that might have caused trouble rather than those that do cause trouble.

Scotland has recently seen the jailing of a Rangers fan for threatening communications before the Bill was even passed.

During the debate itself (videos here), I noted a point from David McLetchie MSP (18.32 minutes in). He says that government attempts to imply that opponents to the Bill are somehow in favour of offensive behaviour and sectarianism. He urges that both sides should treat each other's positions with respect. He is not the only person who has made this point in the hearings and debates leading to the passing of this Bill (see also 36.19 mins into the video). Of course such tactics are very familiar to us in the smoking debate: we are accused of being indifferent  to smoking rates, disease from smoking, discomfort from smoke, if not actually being in receipt of tobacco company payments. "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terrorism," said President Bush, setting a poor example in democratic leadership, but a good example in browbeating opposition. I hope that those MSPs who feel insulted and undermined by this tactic will remember not to use it themselves in the context of the smoking debate.


Edit: Herald comment on the new Act
Coverage from Fife: Academic delivering 3,000-name petition in last-ditch bid to halt Offensive Behaviour bill
Protesters banned from chamber as SNP use majority to pass anti-bigotry bill

Criminalising football fans: Offensive Behaviour at Football Bill (Scotland)

Controversy continues to follow the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill 2011 on its passage through the Scottish Parliament. The essence of the Bill is to make criminal acts of songs or gestures that are perceived to threaten others at or in relation to football matches. At its root is the historically tense relationships between fans of the 'Old Firm' (Rangers and Celtic), but the terms of the Bill would apply to perceived sectarian aggression anywhere in Scotland (or even in some cases abroad, see section 7).


The Bill is vague to a fault:

(b) the behaviour— 

(i) is likely to incite public disorder, or
(ii) would be likely to incite public disorder. 

(2) The behaviour is— 
(a) expressing hatred of, or stirring up hatred against, a group of persons based on 
their membership (or presumed membership) of— 

(i) a religious group,
(ii) a social or cultural group with a perceived religious affiliation,
(iii) a group defined by reference to a thing mentioned in subsection (4), 

(b) expressing hatred of, or stirring up hatred against, an individual based on the 
individual’s membership (or presumed membership) of a group mentioned in any 
of sub-paragraphs (i) to (iii) of paragraph (a), 
(c) behaviour that is motivated (wholly or partly) by hatred of a group mentioned in 
any of those sub-paragraphs, 
(d) behaviour that is threatening, or 
(e) other behaviour that a reasonable person would be likely to consider offensive.

Indeed it takes the shape of an unquantifiable threat: as described here by Roger Cassidy of the Ballingry Celtic Supporters' Football Club:

Strathclyde Police Assistant Chief Constable Campbell Corrigan has recently admitted that he could not publicly state which songs would get you arrested ... In conclusion, it is this ambiguity of the draft legislation that most concerns our membership – with the possibility of a law being introduced that you won't know you're breaking until the police arrest you for it.

Opposition has come from several quarters, on the basis of civil liberties concerns and the absurdity of locking people up for singing songs. Among those expressing concern have been Index on Censorship and John Downie at the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations. The SCVO's line acknowledges the problem of outlawing players from crossing themselves on the pitch. However, Downie's solution to sectarianism (getting rid of denominational schools) seems at best an indirect route to addressing the issue of perceived sectarianism at football matches and at worst irrelevant or even counter-productive.

By contrast Stuart Waiton (a sociologist from Abertay University) argues that Scottish football is not the hotbed of sectarianism that promoters of the Bill make out. In the video below he gives evidence to the Justice Committee on a range of issues: people who take pleasure in taking offence, issues of incitement, to what extent sectarianism really features outside football, and what is or should constitute criminality at a football match.



Waiton welcomes the demonstrations that have so far taken place against the Bill and would like the clubs to show that the legislation isn't needed:

If Rangers and Celtic supporters, bloggers and associations came out in support, not of their own right to sing what they like, but their opponents’ right to do so, the case against the Bill would be strengthened immeasurably.

The focus of the campaign must be along these lines (a petition is also available).