The Law of Unintended Consequences

How laws and policies designed to reduce the levels of hatred in society are in fact increasing them and how it feels to be on the sharp end of this

The Law of Unintended Consequences has always been my favourite law. She is like the tides or the wind, she has no interest in nor compassion for human affairs. She is always there but often ignored and she can wreak havoc for the unprepared.

The laws and policies around attempts to deal with ‘hate speech’ and bigotry and foster more love and inclusion in society have sadly provided her admirers with daily opportunities to see her in full effect. I have written in detail about the impact of Non Crime Hate Incidents and charted their rise and eventual fall, on the sword of Harry Miller’s Court of Appeal victory in December 2021.

Despite the clear ruling of the Court of Appeal and some attempts by the College of Policing to revise their guidance to make it lawful, I am still seeing on a regular basis comments on social media like this

Patrick Basedman🌲🦉🌲 @patrickbasedmn

The absolute state of the UK - required to attend a voluntary interview because you criticized rainbow ideology.

I haven’t seen the tweets which prompted this police communication, so I could have egg all over my face if Patrick does turn out to be a nasty piece of work who threatened violence against named individuals for eg. However, given my experiences of what the police saw fit to record against my name as ‘hate’, what they did to Harry Miller, Darren Brady and Posie Parker etc etc etc etc I am more than willing to give Patrick the benefit of the doubt. What anyone in this position needs to do, is ask the police if they have read the judgments in CPS v Scottow and Miller v College of Policing, invite the police to arrest you, give a no comment interview and contact the Bad Law Project or Fair Cop ASAP.

But it goes beyond just the continuing unlawful idiocy of the police. What is achieved by this ridiculous focus on perfectly lawful views or mildly offensive jokes as ‘hate’ and ‘bigotry’ is to paint a large target on the backs of all those who hold such views or who make mildly offensive jokes. It is encouraging hatred and aggression to be generated against us. I have to remind myself that presumably most of these people, who support more and better ‘hate speech’ laws are good people, operating to the best of motives. That they have empowered a certain minority to think we are fair game, to spit on us, threaten us and make constant complaints to our employers or regulators, seems either to have passed them by - or much, much worse, they are happy to see it happen. We are the ‘baddies’ after all.

Lets just do a quick recap of what I have had to face over the last few years. I appreciate that others have had it far worse. I am not asking for a medal or a pat on the back, but just setting out the reality of this situation

1. I was reported and unlawfully recorded by Wiltshire police for nearly 2 years. It cost me £40K of other people’s money to sort this out.

2. I witnessed the complete and dangerous police failure to protect me and other women from violent men at a Standing For Women rally in June 2022.

3. My emails to a university academic were unlawfully intercepted on the basis that I was a risk of harm to the university and its students.

4. I was investigated by my regulator for over 2 years, who eventually conceded I had not breached the Code of Conduct after the Free Speech Union funded my conference with specialist solicitors to bring action in discrimination

5. My attempt at parody Christmas lyrics in December 2022 asking for the heads of Mermaids trustees was condemned far and wide as an actual call for the decapitation of the trustees rather than an obvious play on words

6. My and Al Peters book launch of individual narratives about people’s ‘gender critical’ journey was removed from the Eventbrite site in October 2022 on the basis that it promoted violence and hate - I will now be taking them to court, with your help.

And of course the complaints to my Chambers keep coming. The most recent in January 2023 was a thinly veiled blackmail attempt

Now I must be blunt - such an individual stains the reputation of your chambers. I am hopeful that, as a collective, the practice of such hateful ideologies will be recognised as deeply dangerous to your clients and the vulnerable people barristers work with every day. However, if no action is taken by your chambers and no reply received I will be forced to approach local and national papers to whistleblow regarding this major safeguarding & ethical concern. If I were to receive an inadequate response that does not fully appreciate the gravity of this situation I would again be forced to approach the news outlets.

Of course I would not mind at all if people went complaining to the newspapers about me. It would be a wonderful chance to publicise my various crowdfunders. That however is not the point; this is about embarrassing and frightening professional colleagues sufficiently to persuade them to take steps to stop me earning a living.

We are told that ‘hate crime’ is ‘increasing’ but few seem to want to stop and make the obvious point - what we are doing is not working. Stopping people from having and expressing lawful protected political speech about matters of significant public interest, or even sending police to investigate mildly offensive jokes, is not making society one iota more ‘loving’, more ‘tolerant’ or more ‘inclusive’.

I do try to remind myself that the people promoting the ‘fight’ against ‘hate’ are good people, with the best of motives. But it gets harder every day. The more they ignore what they are empowering, the more they encourage it, the further they unleash the law of unintended consequences, the more they show their contempt for the rule of law, the more their attempts to combat ‘hate’ and ‘bigotry’ morph into what looks to me like common and garden thuggery, the less faith I can have in their bona fides.

As Orwell concluded Animal Farm

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

EDIT

It has been pointed out that the person tweeting who provoked the police letter in the embedded tweet above is James Goddard and below is possibly the tweet that provoked the police letter. Goddard has apparently been in trouble for harassing/assaulting two journalists and from other tweets I have seen has racist views. But if this really is the tweet, I ask again - what possible criminality is contained within it?

TraditionalBritain @TradBritGroup

If this is the post (right) as it has been presented to be, then British citizens are officially living under a despotic regime. Via: t.me/UnityNewsNetwo…