A paltry one in five people in Scotland are in favour of retaining the leftist government’s draconian new speech law as Humza Yousaf faces the prospect of being removed from power at the general election.
A survey conducted by the FindOutNow polling firm has found that just 21 per cent of the Scottish public support the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, which came into force on Monday, criminalising the “stirring up hatred” against several protected classes of people with up to seven years in prison.
Conversely, the poll found that 45 per cent were in favour of scrapping the new speech codes, while a further 35 per cent said that they were undecided. Broken down by party, three in four Conservative voters want to axe the law, compared to just under half of Labour supporters.
Strikingly, nearly one-third (31 per cent) of supporters of the leftist separatist Scottish National Party (SNP) government of First Minister Humza Yousaf were also in favour of repealing the law, The Times reports.
Despite the unpopularity of the authoritarian speech codes, only the Scottish Conservatives have so far come out publicly in favour of repealing the legislation.
However, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, a resident of Scotland and leading critic of the law, has warned that Yousaf will suffer at the ballot box for going against free speech.
Rowling said that most Scots were “upset and offended by Yousaf’s bumbling incompetence and illiberal authoritarianism” but noted that critics of his government “aren’t lobbying to have him locked up for it”.
“I don’t believe in putting people I disagree with in jail. We’ve got a ballot box and that’s where Yousaf will get his richly deserved comeuppance,” the author wrote.
The most recent polling from YouGov suggests that Rowling may be right, with the Scottish National Party on pace to be relegated to the country’s second-largest party after dominating Scottish politics for most of the past two decades.
The survey found that the SNP is likely to only hold onto 19 seats in the upcoming general election, down from the 43 it currently holds in the locally devolved parliament in Edinburg. Meanwhile, the Labour Party is projected to pick up 28 seats, as The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are each predicted to win five seats.
Rather than take responsibility for the failures of his government or the scandals that collapsed the government of his predecessor Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister Yousaf instead blamed Scotland’s woes on Westminster while continuing his party’s push for Scotland to leave the United Kingdom and rejoin the European Union.
“We know we are working with one hand tied behind our back because of Westminster governments that will never represent Scotland’s needs and interests,” he said.
“Scotland needs independence now more than ever as the Tories and Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party have both hitched their wagon to a broken Brexit Britain, with a joint commitment to austerity and spending cuts. As we mark the SNP’s 90th anniversary and reflect on changes for the better, one thing has never changed – our unwavering mission to regain Scotland’s independence and create a better future for everyone that lives here.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.