A hate crime on Arran? No, just a sign of where we are now

The Herald Scotland

2 days ago

My second thought about the flags was more complicated however. For a start, flags have never been my favourite form of expression, an aversion made worse by the referendums of 2014 and 2016. And by 2023, I was also struggling – still am – with how I feel about LGBTQ+, trans, gender, and self-ID, and Pride flags in particular. There was a time, in the 90s, when I would've felt overwhelmingly positive about the flag, but in 2023, it was starting to change.
The fact that my views have changed was underlined at the weekend when I heard that the police on Arran are investigating an incident with this year's Pride flags. The flags were on the main street in Brodick, as they were in 2023, but they were taken down some time overnight before the main Pride event on Saturday. There were reports on social media that some of the flags were later found dumped on the beach.
The Pride event itself was not affected and went ahead as planned, but Police Scotland announced they were investigating what happened. 'Between 2am and 7am on Saturday, 31 May, flags and banners for the island's LGBTQ parade were pulled down,' they said. 'This is being investigated as a hate crime.'
There are a few things that should worry us about that statement. First of all, the police should have said they were investigating a possible hate crime as they can't be sure who took the flags down and why. Secondly, it looks like the police still haven't realised that the idea of a hate crime defined and enforced by government is highly contested, thanks in part to the debacle of the SNP's law on the subject. And thirdly, even though we cannot know for sure what the motivation was, there's an implication in the statement that anyone who'd remove an LGBTQ Pride flag must be motivated by hate rather than just opposition to what the flag represents. All of this need to be challenged.
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One man who has challenged the concepts behind Pride and hate crime is the writer and broadcaster Andrew Doyle, who has a rather good new book out, The End of Woke. Andrew admits there will be some who object to the word 'woke' and/or deny it exists, but his working definition – a cultural revolution that seeks equity according to group identity by authoritarian means – is supported by 550 pages of evidence on the beliefs that form the core of 'woke' and the individuals whose careers have been damaged or ended because they do not subscribe to them. He also outlines his evidence that the end is coming, including the Supreme Court ruling on the word woman, the ban on puberty blockers, and leftist politicians, including the beloved AOC, quietly removing pronouns from their social media profiles. I hope he's right.
The critique Andrew offers of modern LGBTQ Pride and the concept of hate crime in the book is particularly applicable to the Arran situation. As Andrew points out, many conservatives have always opposed same-sex relations on moral or religious grounds, and it may be that the person or persons who took the flags down in Brodick were just old-school conservatives who don't much like the gays. Such people haven't gone away just because the Pride flag is ubiquitous.
However, it's equally possible that the flags on Arran were removed by someone who supports gay equality but objects to the particular beliefs with which the modern flag has become associated: gender-affirming care for example, or trans self-ID; as Andrew says in his book, this group of people includes many gay people. Andrew also points out that by flying the Progress Pride flag as it's known, corporations and government bodies are taking a side in a highly contentious cultural debate that alienates as many gay people as it attracts.
A Pride flag in Brodick (Image: Newsquest)
The point about Arran is that the response of the police – the portentous announcement that the removal of the flags is being investigated as a hate crime – indicates they do not understand, or are even aware of, the case Andrew is making. The Pride flag is contentious and someone disliking it, or even removing it as they did on Arran, may be driven not by hate but by opposition to what the flag represents. The police are perfectly free to pursue the person for theft or damage, but by using the term hate crime, they are suggesting that objecting to, or removing, or damaging the flag is more than that: it's hateful. They have taken a side.
Andrew Doyle's case is that the wider points in the debate are also poorly understood. In a free society, he says, we are entitled to think and feel as we see fit and so long as that does not interfere with the liberties of others, it includes the right to hate. He also points out that the European Court of Human Rights has admitted there's no universally accepted definition of the expression hate speech and as we saw with the SNP's attempt at a hate law, the lack of clarity renders the law useless or dangerous or both. We do not know the motivation of the person or persons who removed the flags on Arran. But no evidence of hatred is required for it to be seen or recorded as such, and a legal system that requires no evidence is a legal system we should be worried about.
I suspect the police investigation on Arran will come to nothing in the end, as so much of the furore around hate crime does. But I also fear we'll take the wrong messages from the fact that someone took the flags down. Some people, including the police it would seem, will believe it's evidence of hatred for LGBTQ people, but it's much more likely to be evidence of how divisive and contentious the debate over the T in LGBTQ has become, including for many gay people. So the question in the end is: was it a hate crime we saw on Arran at the weekend? No: just a sign of where we are now.