UKC

What do you lot think?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/katie-hopkins-and-the-sun-editor-r...

I thought she was just a bit of a nutter but now the Society of Black Lawyers want her to go to the ICC!

In reply to Morgan Woods:

I think she is nasty. As I have said before we don't have unlimited free speech.

In reply to Morgan Woods:

Weren't the Society of Black Lawyers the lot who wanted to report the Spurs fans for racially abusing themselves, or am I getting mixed up?

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

That's them as far as I remember though nowt came of it. All this reporting and petition nonsense will come to nought as it sells papers.

Stop paying attention to her and she becomes another shouty nutter on the internet.

In reply to Pepper:


yup. Wish people would stop biting. Although on the other hand I am curious as to what she will end up supporting in a few years time as she has to keep increasing the controversial comments in order to stay in the news.

In reply to marsbar:


But nor do I believe there is a crime called "being nasty"

In reply to Postmanpat:


I thought she was being accused of something rather less vague than that (but still vague), namely, 'incitement to racial hatred'.

In reply to Morgan Woods: I think the Society of Black Lawyers are rather extreme but occupy a place in civil society that is necessary.

Katie Hopkins is truly vile though. I would be curious if anyone here has actually met her

In reply to dissonance:

Have no fear, there is no limit to public outrage.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


Yes, but that is not what marsbar accused her of.

If people are going to be convicted for calling other people nasty things then we have problem.

In reply to wbo:


Really? What place is that, then? Genuinely curious - I've not heard of a "Society of White Lawyers" or "Society of Asian Lawyers"? What's wrong with the Law Society, which they are, presumably, all members of?

In reply to marsbar:

Are you saying you want to stop her saying what she said because it is nasty?

In reply to Postmanpat:


But marsbar isn't the one reporting her to the police. And the Met don't seem to have said anything about whether they're investigating, let alone bringing charges against her.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


No, but she was the person I was responding to. I think that, quite reasonably, I took her comment to be a defence of the attempt to have Hopkins prosecuted.

In reply to Postmanpat:


There's a line between saying nasty things which is legal and inciting racial hatred which quite reasonably isn't. The Sun's lawyers presumably think she's one side of it, the SBL the other. While there are plenty of people far more deserving of a day in the dock who'll sadly never see it I've no problem with the police and if necessary, the CPS being asked to take a view on Hopkins. To call her a journalist belittles the profession, she's a publicity hungry gobshite saying nothing of merit.

jk

In reply to jkarran:


How do you think calling people "cockroaches" can be reasonably construed as "inciting racial hatred?

In reply to Postmanpat:

TBF, saying that their boats should be burned isn't exactly neighbourly...

In reply to beardy mike:


No, it's horrible. Are you unable to understand that this doesn't mean it is a crime of racial incitement?
Do you think that every time somebody says somebody else should be treated badly they should be investigated for criminal activity? Or should it only happen when the "somebody else" is of a different ethnic background, in which case we can infer a thought crime of racism?

In reply to Postmanpat:


Alone I think you'd struggle to make much of a case from that. As part of a pattern of behavior comparing African immigrants to pests and disease like norovirus, devaluing African lives and suffering, suggesting military force is more appropriate than rescue for desperate refugees in mortal danger at sea. Personally I think she's a) vile and b) treading pretty close to the line legally but I'm quite content for others better informed to decide one way or the other.

jk

In reply to Morgan Woods:

Deportation to Libya would seem an appropriate punishment

In reply to Postmanpat:

It's not just calling people cockroaches... some of the language is pretty strong.

I agree that unpleasant doesn't necessarily mean inciting racial hatred... but I'd think the below is a least worthy of a closer look.

"NO, I don’t care. Show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in water, play violins and show me skinny people looking sad.

I still don’t care. Because in the next minute you’ll show me pictures of aggressive young men at Calais, spreading like norovirus on a cruise ship."

In reply to Bob Hughes:



Why? There isn't hint of a reference to racial origin so the only possible way racial hatred can be construed is an inferred thought crime. Does it need a police investigation to ascertain that?

In reply to Postmanpat:
I can understand what the difference is, but as others say, she's treading a fairly fine line. If it was the Hook saying it the other way around, it most likely WOULD be construed as inciting racial hatred. At the end of the day, the woman for whatever has a voice in the media, not quite sure why but she does. She doesn't seem to take that position of responsibility particularly seriously considering she can reach out to millions of people. Do the BNP need any more excuses? Yeah, maybe dragging her through court is a bit extreme, but taking away her job wouldn't really be. What she's said and done over the years is no less wanky than Clarkson.

In reply to beardy mike:

What makes you say that?

IT's pretty obvious why she does it. To make money. And I don't think Clarkson has ever said anything remotely this wanky has he?

In reply to beardy mike:
Do the BNP need any more excuses?

The BNP have pretty much collapsed. This happened directly after their views and policies were questioned and challenged. I'd hazard a guess that if instead they had been prosecuted for being generally nasty, they would be doing rather better now. Let this women spout off but point out the vileness of what she is saying - she will lose support soon enough.

In reply to Postmanpat:

Well OK, if Clarkson hasn't said anything as wanky as this then she should lose her job too. I mean Clarkson has had his moments too with some fairly racially charged "jokes". You could say the same for Jonathon Ross and Russell Brand. They overstepped a line. I think it's a fairly reasonable expectation of our media that they don't employ utter tools who come out with nonsense which is needlessly insulting to a great many people. It wouldn't really be that hard would it? Maybe a firm slap every time she said something like this wouldn't go amiss...

In reply to Morgan Woods:

Hard to really comment as the article in question is behind The Sun paywall but I'd have to agree with what I suspect is the general gist of it.

In reply to Postmanpat:


Oh I dunno...

"Make no mistake, these migrants are like cockroaches. They may all look a bit "Bob Geldof's Ethiopia circa 1984" but they are built to survive a nuclear bomb."

In reply to Indy:


Perhaps I'm being daft. What is 'it' and what do you suspect is the general gist of 'it'?
jk

In reply to Bob Hughes:

It's utterly horrible but I don;t think inciting *racial* hatred. Unless you take the bit about Ethiopia to be a reference to blacks, which would be odd as many of the migrants are not black.

In reply to The Ivanator:

Classed as cruel and unusual I'd think ... for the Libyans.

In reply to cander:

To be fair, if there's any one thing you could do to increase the number of migrants, it's to send KH over there. I mean jesus - it'd be enough to make you want to take you're chances floating across the med in a single man inflatable rubber dingy isn't it?

In reply to MG:

The key part of the law which I think is relevant is whether the person saying or writing either intends to incite racial violence or might reasonably expect racial violence to be stirred up by what they say or write.

I think a fair case can be made for this when you consider that the article starts off with an exhortation to "show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in the water" and goes on to compare migrants to cockroaches, feral human beings, norovirus spreading on a cruise ship victims of the 1984 famine in Ethiopia. At least enough of a case to be investigated.

The article is so far beyond the pale that it would be hard, very hard, to make the argument that more sobre journalists would be deterred from expressing their views if she is investigated. You can perfectly well make the argument she is making without such zealous language.

In reply to jkarran:

Waiting till you've got 100's of illegal economic migrants bobbing around on some un-seawothy boat SOMEWHERE in the Mediterranean and then hoping that a couple of coastguard patrol ships are going to find them before a tragedy happens is completely unsustainable. SKY news is reporting this lunchtime that the captain and mate of a ship that capsized drowning an estimated 900 people have been are arrested. Its being said that up to 30,000 will drown in the Med trying to get to Europe this summer. This has got to stop and the humanitarian thing to do is to stop people getting on to theses boats in the first place and if that means burning/destroying them then so be it. Again instead of bring people to Europe build internment camps in Africa paid for by the EU and place people there.

Its also interesting that the petition to sack Katie Hopkins is more popular than the one that ask the Govt. to do more to help the migrants..... :|

In reply to Bob Hughes:
I still don't see the racial aspect. Hatred, yes, but which race is she inciting violence or hatred against ("migrant" not being a race)?

In reply to MG:

Wasn't a bloke convicted of racism for calling Andy Murray a "useless jock"?

In reply to Indy:

Possibly (or more likely prosecuted). Seems pretty stupid if so, but so what?

In reply to Bob Hughes:


Why? Apart from a reference to Ethiopia, which is not a race, there is not the slightest, tiniest hint of racism in it. The reader may choose to infer racism but that does not make it so. Being "beyond the pale" or "wanky" or bloody nasty does not make it worthy of a criminal investigation.
Newspapers and other media consistently use lawyers to ensure they are just on the right side of the law. Once you ignore the law and investigate, let alone prosecute, just to make a point then you have set a very dangerous precedent.
A simple example: journalists will always use the word "alleged" until a case is proven. Should we actually infer from the other language used by a journalist that he/she, despite using the word "alleged" was actually implying the person was guilty so the journalist should be investigated or prosecuted?

In reply to cander:


They could always put her on a boat back to Europe.

In reply to Postmanpat:

There is a history of dehumanising people by calling them cockroaches prior to genocide.

The Nazis referred to the Jews in this way, and in Rwanda Hutu extremists told the people to "weed out the cockroaches" meaning kill the Tutsis.

Certainly nasty unpleasant and in poor taste. Inciting racial hatred is for the courts to decide. It seems entirely possible that your average EDL idiot could be persuaded to use this as an excuse to attack random black people, or Eastern Europeans etc.

Given this kind of thing happens "police confirmed that the attack last Friday night was prompted by a confusion over the words "paedophile" and "paediatrician"."

In reply to MG:

No possibility about it.... "A postman who derided the tennis star Andy Murray as a "useless Jock" in graffiti scrawled on posters in a staff toilet has been convicted of racial abuse."

So what????

In reply to marsbar:



Sheesh. I'm sure that various people and peoples have used lots of terms about other people or peoples before harming them. This does not make the terms themselves indicative of racism. If X accuses the person of a different race him mugged him a "thieving bastard" does this mean that the term "thieving bastard" is always racist?

As for your argument that this could be used by EDL idiots to attack foreigners. So what? That is not evidence of inciting racial hatred because there is no evidence of racism in her comments.

You people really worry me.

In reply to Indy:

In the context of what I was saying! Obviously it shouldn't have happened.

In reply to Morgan Woods:


Katie Hopkins is a professional Troll.

She thrives on the oxygen of any form of publicity, and will say anything to be controversial, because it keeps her in the media spotlight, and that equates to money in her pocket. Her comments are not made out of any ideological or political conviction, they are just provocation for provocations sake - that's what being a troll is all about..

So the best way to deal with her, is ignore her.

Being all over every social media channel is bad enough, but if she finds out her fame has got her on a climbing website, it will probably give her an orgasm!

I don't know about anyone else, but the thought of Katie Hopkins having an orgasm makes my stomach turn, so stop this thread now before the ugly mare finds out about it.

In reply to Morgan Woods:
In Scotland a comment that somebody (anybody not just the intended party) perceives to be racist can be criminally investigated as such.

So there can be quite a lot of emphasis placed on what could be perceived/inferred from the comment.

Was she being racist? God damn right she was. I think it can be easily infered as such.

Good luck proving it though.

In reply to Postmanpat:

I'm glad I worry you.

In reply to marsbar:

What a strange comment. Why would you think that people worrying about freedom of speech and other peoples' disregard or misunderstanding of it , is a good thing?


I have a very strong suspicion that you are unable to distinguish between a)not thinking that her comments warrant a criminal investigation and b) thinking her comments are "acceptable".
This is also rather worrying.

In reply to marsbar:

Where would you like to see the law put limits on what we can say?

In reply to Postmanpat:


Because:
1. the crime is not "racism", it is "incitement to racial hatred". Racial hatred, according to the law, defined as "hatred against a group of persons. . . defined by reference to colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins." There is enough in the article (They all look like Ethiopians; they need to get creative in North Africa; we need to connect migrants in the med with Africans climbing onto lorries in Calais) to warrant an investigation into whether this is really about North Africans.

2. "which is not a race" is a very shaky defense. It is highly arguable whether you could define "black people" as a race (but that's a whole other thread) but few would argue that beating up a man because he is black is an act of racial violence; & in any case the sort of people who can be incited to racial violence tend not to be so specific.

You don't need to infer racism, you need to believe that "having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby."


Of course it isn't and that's not the point I was making by saying the article is far beyond the pale. The point I was making is that there is an argument made (I think you made it further up, or perhaps MG) that investigations, even if they come to nothing, discourage a valuable debate on a topic. In other circumstances I agree with this but I just don't think it applies here.

In reply to Goucho:

I don't know about anyone else, but the thought of Katie Hopkins having an orgasm makes my stomach turn, so stop this thread now before the ugly mare finds out about it.

I think she's quite hot and have sent her a link to this thread.
Fingers crossed...

In reply to Bob Hughes:



>
It's about the people in the boats. Is it "inciting racial hatred" to include the facts of where they come from?


I think it applies here in a massive way. Lets us suppose that Hopkins is found guilty of incitement to racial violence despite the fact that she didn't define the people by race or encourage violence.

The risk is then created either that promoting a policy to keep out immigrants (or any other policy which can be perceived as detrimental to a different ethnic, racial or national group) can be regarded as incitement to racial violence.
Alternatively or in addition, any term of abuse directed at a person of a different ethnic, racial or national group, regardless of whether it refers to their ethnic, racial or national group, can be regarded as an incitement to racial violence.


Even the suggestion that either of these things is possible is likely to discourage open debate.

In reply to Postmanpat:


This isn't a "fact about where they come from": "They may all look a bit "Bob Geldof's Ethiopia circa 1984" but they are built to survive a nuclear bomb."


As I've said above you don't need to define people by race


I would say that this passage gets very close. At least close enough that "racial hatred is likely to get stirred up" is a possibility:

"Show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in water, play violins and show me skinny people looking sad.

I still don’t care. Because in the next minute you’ll show me pictures of aggressive young men at Calais, spreading like norovirus on a cruise ship."


I don't see this as a risk at all. It is perfectly possible to defend the kind of policies Katie Hopkins is talking about without exhorting anyone to "show me dead bodies", "show me pictures of coffins", comparing migrants to viruses, cockroaches and all the rest of it. In fact, outside of the weird world of Hopkins, it would be very odd to see that kind of language in a serious defense of any policy.

In reply to MG:
I'm happy with the law as it stands. As I already said, its up to the courts to decide this one not me. Do you have a problem with the current laws?

In reply to Postmanpat:

I think you are talking nonsense.

I make a point and you don't like it so you make out I'm "worrying".

I find this amusing.

You then try to make out I'm too stupid to distinguish between opinion and legal argument.

As I already said, my opinion is that her comments are nasty. The opinion of some lawyers is that they require investigation. I assume they are more qualified than you to decide this. Following an investigation the court may decide that they are legal or not.

Perhaps you find the court process worrying because they will look at evidence, not just your teeny little world view.

In reply to marsbar:
Aspects of them (although section 5 reform has helped) , and certainly the way they are being enforced and applied.

In reply to marsbar:
>

Do you not find having what it's permissible to say often requires fine legal argument (rather than being obvious) disturbing?

Or put another way, do you not think this will inevitably restrict debate and discussion?

In reply to MG:

I hardly think dehumanising people and saying you don't care about the dead counts as debate. We might get a sensible debate if she ever shuts up. She is one of those people that stifles debate by shouting loud and being pointless.

In reply to MG:


wherever the line on free speech is drawn, there will be a fine legal argument over things which are written close to that line. It's not disturbing, its an inescapable part of the fact that freedom of speech is a fuzzier concept than what most of us would like it to be.

In reply to Bob Hughes:


In which case what does it have to do with race,ethnicity or nationality? It is simply a lurid description which compares them to some people at one place at one moment in time.


Include nationality or ethnicity in my sentence.


Yes, and calling a thief a "thieving bastard" could do the same if he or she happens to be of a different race. So should this also be investigated?



Apart from being nasty how does this incite violence? There is no mention of doing anything to them. If one infers that saying that that certain people who happen to be of a different race (or nationality etc etc) may represent some sort of threat, does that by definition incite violence to them?

If not, then the problem must be the language, in which case simply using nasty language about people of a different race (or nationality etc etc) must incite racial violence.


Of course it is possible but it is also becomes possible that one may be investigated for it.

The other issue, of course, is the shocking twisted morality of people who are up in arms all over the social media about a mad troll trying to stir things up but could scarcely summon a tweet about thousands of people drowning.

Funny old world, eh….

In reply to Morgan Woods:

Am I alone in not knowing who Katie Hopkins is? I'm not going to Google to find out coz from reading this thread I don't like the sound of her.

In reply to FactorXXX:


Enjoy

http://thesteepletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Katie-Hopkins1.jpg

In reply to Father Noel Furlong:

Scary stuff. I feel sorry for the snake.

In reply to marsbar:



So, as we've been discussing through the day, language is quite important. When you mean "amusing" then say "amusing" as opposed to "glad". Saying "glad" implies you want to upset me, which doesn't seem very nice.
I still find it (amusing)an odd reaction since my concern is obviously that you appear to think that crude boorish abuse is equivalent, to coin a phrase, as shouting "fire" in a crowded room and should therefore be banned. Free speech therefore appears to me to be pretty low down in your list of priorities. But I may be wrong.


I suggested that may be the case since it was difficult to see why you might be "glad" unless you had not understood the difference in what I was saying, or of course you didn't care about the difference. As it turns out, you weren't glad.


You are making the assumption that the lawyers involve are not simply making a political point. They have a bit of a track record.


Well that's what we've just been doing. What is my "teeny world view" by the way?

In reply to marsbar:
Well you might think that but to me wanting to criminalise those who disagree with you is a bad way to go, for a variety of reasons. Most obviously, stopping people saying things doest stop then thinking those things

And how does she stifle debate anyway?? Plenty of discussed on immigrants from all angles.

In reply to Bob Hughes:

Not really. Banning direct incitement to violence would be pretty clear line, for example. Vague laws about how people feel will never be clear cut and are bad laws, IMO.

In reply to Postmanpat:



Because it is a straw man and gives them an opportunity for an easy enjoyable emotional spasm, so they can feel all moral and superior (which they love doing). Whereas addressing the real issues about the Mediterranean migrants is difficult, morally ambiguous, expensive both economically and in terms of its impact on our societies and probably has no real solution, certainly not any that would be acceptable to the congenitally self-righteous (who deal exclusively in high sounding generalities, never in practical details), would ever accept.

Very hard to know what to do about the migrants in unsafe boats trying to get to Italy and Europe, who no-one really wants, even though the vast majority of people don't want to see mass drownings in shipping lanes. Certainly NO European population wants any more mass immigration, least of all Muslim immigrants from a violent and turbulent part of the world, despite the incessant and unchanging efforts of the likes of Rom the Bear to claim, ludicrously, that primitive tribesmen from third world countries are some sort of benefit to European countries. Very easy to get all excited about the attention seeking and extreme comments of this woman, it avoids having to consider the incredibly intractable underlying issues, while getting a warm glow of self-righteousness at the same time, with a side-benefit of suggesting prohibiting opinions they don't like, using grotesque contortions of the most nebulous and badly written of laws for the purpose. Not that the last is remotely realistic after the collapse of the trials of the Sun and other journalists, the CPS won't put themselves at risk of another fiasco.

Win all round.

In reply to Father Noel Furlong:



The photoshop boys must have done a 24 hour shift on that one.

In reply to Postmanpat:

I find it worrying that you can't see how blatantly racist her comments are. How explicit does racism have to be before you'll accept that it really is racism? Is there anything short of her saying "I hate these black people, and just to clarify, I hate them because they're black - it's not coincidental" that could satisfy you that the comments were racist?

If you talk about a group of people in this way, dehumanising them, describing them not as individual human beings but as "cockroaches" etc, then you're expressing hatred towards that group. What defines that group in this case? It's where they come from.

Do you honestly believe that she thinks of these people as individual human beings with equal value to rich white people until they get on a boat, at which point they cease to be people and become "cockroaches". That isn't plausible. Much more plausible is that she sees the pictures and hates them because they are not like her. She is blatantly a total racist, and her comments express that with gusto. If you can't see that you need to worry. (I suspect you can, since it's so incredibly obvious, but you've dug a bit of a hole now).

Is she on the right side of the law - I dunno - but surely you can see how it easy it is to interpret her remarks as inciting racial hatred?

As to whether the law is the best response, I would hope we as a society could do better. It's a sorry indictment of social attitudes that she makes money out of this.

In reply to Simon4:


I believe it is known as "virtue signalling". You should try it. You can say things like "I hate 4x4s" and "theNHS is a national treasure" and feel a warm glow come on all over.

In reply to Father Noel Furlong:

Enjoy

http://thesteepletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Katie-Hopkins1.jpg


Thanks, I did!!!

In reply to Simon4:

Your post implies that the people getting all upset by KH's comments are the same people responsible for providing an effective policy response to the issue.

As such, it is a confused and incoherent argument.

In reply to Jon Stewart:



You don't think she would have done the same to, for example, miners thirty years ago?
Actually I think she is focusing much more on how she can provoke a reaction, which is what she gets paid for, than anything else. I find it hard to believe that she believes much of what she says.
Aside from that, no, I don't think it is racism that is driving her comments. I think it is more about "in" groups-people like her, and "out" groups which would,infamously, include people of lower social classes as much as different nationalities or races. Indeed, pretty much anyone who doesn't share her "values" (odd term, I know). It is a deeply unpleasant and callous attitude but not fundamentally driven by racism.
In that context I think focusing on the racist aspect, when it is not explicit, is a misuse of the law, a pretext to find her guilty of being a callous and nasty piece of work.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

She is blatantly a total racist, and her comments express that with gusto.

Alternatively, she is just being deliberately controversial, doesn't actually mean what she is spouting on about and is getting paid lots of money for doing so. It's all basically a con and it seems a lot of people are falling for it and the more they fall for it, the more controversial she will get and subsequently get paid even more for extra newspaper sales.
At some stage, people will get bored of her, she'll go too far, or someone will upstage her and she'll disappear.

In reply to Postmanpat:

So its ok to be racist if its not driven by racism?

I do try to follow your argument but i'm not getting that one.

Being mean to miners is allowed. Being mean to black people isn't. There are historical reasons for this.

In reply to Postmanpat:


I'm sure she would, but the fact that she hates groups of white people as well doesn't stop her being racist!


It's hard to believe, but she's pretty consistent in the thrust of what she says.


I think you're using a very narrow definition of racism which avoids the heart of the issue. She probably loves rich black Brits who speak with a posh accent, and would equally hate boatloads of poor white people, but this doesn't mean that her comments weren't incredibly racist. Just because there are more characteristics other than ethnicity that she's got a problem with, doesn't let her off the hook.


The law has to be applicable where the racism is not explicit, otherwise it would be impotent. Whether the law does or should be applied here I don't know or care really. I just wish she didn't have a platform.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


While that may be true to a degree, I think more than anything else she just doesn't like destitute people washing up on our shores and "sponging" off the social welfare system. If it had been 1939 and the were white Polish Jews her reaction would have likely been the same. So I think the skin colour is more coincidence than the real target of her ire.


Of course she doesn't. But that's by no means unusual. In fact we all value lives of those similar to us over the lives of others on a daily basis. My wife dies and I may be heartbroken. Someone else's wife dies and sad. The wife of someone dieing in India matters not a jot to most of us.


Indeed. Then hopefully we don't need the legal system to step in. The great nation that is Britain will en mass refuse to buy/read The Sun from now on....fat chance of that happening though isn't there? They still want to read the back page sports, look at the tits on page 3 and feel a strong degree of sympathy for her argument that we shouldn't be paying for everyone else's misfortune and choices to become economic migrants. She is simply echoing the sentiments of a substantial proportion of the population.

In reply to FactorXXX:


There's no doubt about that, but that doesn't make what she says any less offensive.

In reply to David Martin:


That's true, but it doesn't take the racism out of her comments.


This is true but not relevant. KH is saying that a group of people defined by where they come from don't deserve to be treated as humans.


As I said, let's just give up, this place is f^cked.,

In reply to marsbar:


No. She has not actually said anything explicitly racist, and what she has said is not driven by racism.


Clearly. Saying "f*ck the miners, they're the enemy within" and "f*ck the boat people, they're a threat to our way of life" is much the same thing. Their race or nationality is not the point. She regards them as abusable because they are not like her and don't contribute to her, not because of their ethnicity.


In a society which had and has become very suddenly a multiracial society it was reasonable to introduce a new class of law aimed at reducing the ability of people to provoke racial tension or persecution by verbal means. However, it was said at the time rightly, that these laws would be used circumspectly. That is how they should be used, not as catch all tools to incriminate people smearing Andy Murray or making callous comments which could, if one chooses, be regarded as racist. The effect of misusing these laws is the opposite of their intention.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I don't understand that. Surely you have just acknowledged that race not what drives her comments or her view of the boat people?
As I said above "She regards them as abusable because they are not like her and don't contribute to her, not because of their ethnicity."

In reply to Postmanpat:


I'm not that confident. My guess is that she mainly hates them because they're poor, secondly because they're foreign, and thirdly because they're black. These things tend to go together in my experience - more likely that just hating them because they're poor. But we'll never know for sure.

In reply to Morgan Woods:

she hasnt broke any law
whats next? thought police?

In reply to jkarran:


I'm hoping that being reported to the police might make her think more carefully about what she writes.

If she'd mentioned a particular race as being like cockroaches, I dare say she would have broken the law.

Perhaps she already has thought carefully about what she writes, rereading the above, which could mean she'll

continue to have vile things printed? Great :-/

I hope it does give her a shock though...

In reply to Postmanpat:


It's fairly simple. When you express blanket hatred towards a group of people defined by where they come from, it's racist (or perhaps xenophobic or some other subtler shade of racism). It might be that there are other motivations mixed in with the racism, or even superseding the racism, but you can't talk about people of another ethnicity like that without being racist.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

But it's not defined by "where they come from". It's much more defined by "where they're coming to"

I assume you are not actually arguing that being rude to someone of a different ethnicity is racist per se, rather that that being rude to a group defined by their ethnicity must be racist?

But she isn't explicity defining them by their ethnicity. She is defining them by their status as migrants.

If Arsenal field a team of eleven black players and I say Arsenal are shite I trust you wouldn't regard that as racist? They are (shite) Arsenal players who happen to be black.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

How racist is that compared to racist?

In reply to Postmanpat:


We're talking about boatloads of people from North Africa and the Middle East. And KH described them as "cockroaches". I really am struggling with this labyrinthine argument that that isn't racist.


They are boatloads of people from North Africa and the Middle East. She is saying that they are sub-human.


You'd be referring to their skills as footballers and that would be clear, you wouldn't be saying that they're not human beings. If you said that, you'd get a funny reaction don't you think? Do you think it could fairly be construed as incredibly racist? "No no", you'd say in your defense "I didn't say that they weren't human because of their ethnicity, it was because they played really badly". Err, OK, might be the response then why did you make it sound so f^cking racist?

If a busload of black people turned up outside your house, and you said "get these animals away from my family" I would regard that as racist. You might have said the same about a group of crusties, but that's not going to let you off the hook.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I wonder if you aren't a victim of the modern obsession with racism as an ultimate sin and therefore of looking for and so seeing it everywhere.

But as you've already acknowledged, she might say something similar about a boatload of white immigrants. It is your assumption that terming the Africans is racist but not the whites. So basically you are inferring the thought thus creating a thought crime by the speaker.



You're rather demonstrating my point above. You are pretty close to indicating that criticism of any group or even anyone of a different ethnic background must by defintion be racist. I think that is rubbish and leads to dishonesty. What am I supposed to do, patronise the shite Arsenal team by saying they are not shite, for fear of being branded a racist?
Supposing the shite Arsenal team spent the afternoon kicking and spitting at the other team so I called them, a la Sir Alf, "animals". Would that be racist? Suppose I used it of an Arsenal team of white players acting the same way?


Well, as you know, I distrust and resent the assumption of moral superiority and of the power of moral arbiters by the left. Are you saying that if a mixed group of blacks and crusties arrived you have the right to decide that the term was racist about some of them but not about others? All sorts of people get described as animals for various things. I don't see that it should be exclusive to white people.

In reply to MG:


Then you'd have fine legal arguments about whether what was said was a "direct incitement to violence" or not. See Brandenburg v Ohio for an example. He was very clearly a racist but that had nothing to do with the case against him which rested on whether his warning of "revengeance" constituted advocacy of violence.

In reply to Bob Hughes:
That was a key judgement from 1969 that provides part of clarity of the US law! You don't get lawyers poring over endless mildy provocative twitter posts in the US. Nor do you get people fretting about whether journalists should be prosecuted for some thought crime.

In reply to Postmanpat:

"Show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in water," is all a bit "will no-one rid me of this troublesome priest"

And if you don't like that, later on she says we should burn their boats and put a hole in anything that looks like a boat.


But she's not just calling a thief a "thieving bastard" - she's saying "show me the coffin of the thieving bastard" and "show me the bodies of the thieving norovirus floating in the water".

In reply to Bob Hughes:


No it's not. This is clear and obvious reference to the TV and media film of people who have already died, not an incitement to kill them. You are wilfully choosing to misinterpret it.


Which is a lurid way of saying that naval vessels should be used to keep the migrants out.
It's a deeply unpleasant way of describing such a policy but if you think that it is incitement to violence then you basically believe that any person promoting the use of the navy to keep out immigrants is inciting racial violence.

In reply to MG:


Yes but not before many hours of fine legal debate, which is the point. The law was clarified as a result of fine legal debate, which wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been arrested in the first place. Which is partly why I don't think that the argument that to investigate Katie Hopkins would discourage open debate holds water. One thing an investigation might achieve is clarity.

In reply to Bob Hughes:

I don't think it can. There is no clear principle in the law, as this thread demonstrates. It's all about what individuals and groups of people think is "nasty", which comes down to opinion.

In reply to Bob Hughes:

You seem to be shifting your ground here from objecting that her comments were racist to objecting they incited violence. I don't see how the former can be correct as the migrants come from all over and are not any particular race (in fact there are reports of e.g. Christian and Muslim migrants fighting each other). The latter is perhaps a stronger case but I think her remarks are a long way from any direct incitement to violence.

In reply to Postmanpat:


I might be more tempted to believe that if she were comparing the French to norovirus, calling Belgians Cockroaches, describing Germans as feral, or suggesting we should use gunboats against Spanish immigrants. Ranting we should let the hungry Portuguese drown, see if she cares. I'm not a Hopkins follower, Sun reader or Twitter user so perhaps I've missed something but it seems to me she singles predominantly African refugees/migrants out for special treatment even by her low standards.

jk

In reply to jkarran:


You have, she'll happily turn her ire on anyone.

In reply to Tyler:

Will or has and using that very same form of speech describing groups of people as vermin, feral or a disease?
jk

In reply to jkarran:

I don't know, I'm not a fan of her oeuvre but I just know her targets are not exclusively black or foreign.

Why are you so keen to analyse the minute of this, is it not enough to condemn what she's said as being f*cking horrible regardless of whether it is technically racist or whether she is herself actually rascist or just plain f*cking horrible. Why is it that the subject everyone wants to debate is whether or not we can pin another epithet on an irrelevant troll who we are all already agreed is beyond the pail? This sort of debate must be music to the ears of European leaders because, while we are busy hand wringing over the exact motivation of ONE woman's words, we are nicely distracted from the real issue. I guess she is a convenient lightening rod, if we pour our energies into hating someone who is obviously bad then that must mean we are good, right? Never mind that, unless you have phoned up the Red Cross (or similar) this week and pledged some money to help the situation, your net contribution to helping out is probably less than Katie f*cking Hopkin's

In reply to Tyler:


I don't really have an opinion on whether she's a racist or not and I'm not claiming what she has said is explicitly racist. All I'm saying is that it would appear she's treading very close to the line, potentially breaking the law on inciting hatred. Perhaps she is, perhaps she isn't, perhaps the line's in the right place, perhaps it isn't. Where I started out was saying I'm comfortable enough with the police being asked to look into that. I don't think the (dubious) claim that she's a journalist should afford her any special protection on this.


A fair point.
jk

In reply to jkarran:


It might be where you started but where you ended up was wanting to do a forensic examination of the language she used to insult different groups (q.v. "Will or has and using that very same form of speech describing groups of people as vermin, feral or a disease?") as though being able to prove she was a racist somehow matters. Whether her comments are driven by racism or some other flavour of unpleasantness shouldn't be the issue, let's face it racism is just some thing for people to hang their nastiness on.


and one aimed not at you but all of us.

In reply to Tyler:

Exactly.

In reply to Tyler:

I think the racial thing came from the fact there laws against (inciting) racial hatred but not general hatred. Whether there should be or not is another matter of course.

In reply to MG:


Not really. My first post was this (I've edited out the first sentence to save space but I don't think it changed the meaning or focus of my post):

"I agree that unpleasant doesn't necessarily mean inciting racial hatred... but I'd think the below is a least worthy of a closer look.

"NO, I don’t care. Show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in water, play violins and show me skinny people looking sad.

I still don’t care. Because in the next minute you’ll show me pictures of aggressive young men at Calais, spreading like norovirus on a cruise ship.""

I think it is sufficiently close to the line of inciting racial hatred as defined by the law to make an investigation reasonable.

The actual text of that law is:

=====
Meaning of “racial hatred”.

In this Part “racial hatred” means hatred against a group of persons F9. . . defined by reference to colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins.

Use of words or behaviour or display of written material.

(1)A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—

(a)he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or

(b)having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby.
====

Katie Hopkins's article:
1. characterizes all migrants crossing the channel as all looking like Ethiopians despite, as you say, them coming from many different places, from Mali to Eritrea to Syria. In that sense she makes it a racial issue.
2. is certainly abusive and insulting
3. I don't think she intends to stir up racial hatred but you could make a good argument that “hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins” is likely to be stirred up by what she wrote.

In reply to Postmanpat:


Haha! That is brilliant. One has to be a victim of an obsession to see racism in comments describing migrants from North Africa as "cockroaches".


As I've explained, we can't know precisely her motivations. I'm taking her comments at face value, while you're constructing an implausible argument that KH respects people from North Africa and the Middle East as equals, except when they get on a boat fleeing crisis, at which point they become cockroaches. Isn't it more likely that she just looks at people who aren't like her in ethnicity and culture and thinks, "yuck, inferior!". (That's racist by the way.) I agree that it's not *just* their race that irks her. It isn't pure explicit racism and nothing but (i.e. it doesn't meet your incredibly high threshold for racism), it's implicit racism in a wider context.


No I'm not. I'm saying that when you express blanket hatred towards a group of people who share a different ethnic origin, then it certainly sounds incredibly racist. If you're going to do this, I advise that you provide sufficient context to demonstrate that you're not making the link between the ethnicity and being subhuman.

You may wish to ignore the world's history in which the treatment of non-whites as subhuman has played an enormous role and shaped the global socio-political landscape, but it is unlikely that the rest of the world will join you in doing so. The reasons to steer clear of comments with racist implications are important, they're not some silly leftie fad as you imply.


It would be ambiguous, and rather awkward, perhaps like KH's comments. If the commentator was well-known as a racist, it would probably be interpreted be interpreted as racist. Likewise, KH has form. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/katie-hopkins-reported-to-the-poli...


The ambiguity would not exist here, since you're white, and there's no history to raise the spectre of racism.


No I'm not. I'm saying that when you express blanket hatred towards a group of people who share a different ethnic origin, then you're making a racist remark. At the very least, you're leaving yourself wide open to accusations of racism.

I'm afraid I don't support your fight for the right to say things with glaring racist implications without being accused of racism. Surely it's better not to make such remarks?

In reply to Jon Stewart:

You have to be looking for racism, yes.


I'm not making an argument about how she regards people from NA and the ME at all. I'm saying her comments are about boat people and how she views boat people.She regards them as unequal to her and as trouble makers and chooses to use lurid terms to make this clear. That is what she says and it is not possible for me or you to know what is inside her mind , although you seem to think you can.


>
It does to people who want to hear it that way, which is why most people are very careful about their language for fear of being, often completely unjustifiably, labelled as racist. That does not mean they are racist or the language is racist. It means some people choose to hear it as racist.


As I noted above, there is a reason why laws on use of language were introduced. Not actually to make up for historical wrongs but to stop future wrongs. Freedom of speech was sacrificed to a greater good in specific and limited situations. Misusing these laws by making manufactured accusations of racism has the opposite impact to their purpose.




Once again, you are arguing that because a listener can (choose to) misinterpret language it is "wrong" to use it. That ambiguity is a "wrong". I disagree. It may be unwise, which is why most of us are careful about our use of such language, but the "wrong" can just as easily be on the part of the listener who interprets the meaning of implication of the language mistakenly.


Well, obviously!!! That doesn't justify the accusations if they are incorrect. Wouldn't you agree that there is a large leap from "that could be misinterpreted, best not to risk someone taking offence" to "that's racist and inciting racial violence and is a criminal act".


It's generally better not to make remarks that are offensive or can be construed as offensive, whether racially offensive or not, unless there is justification. Hopkins is a nasty piece of work largely because she is offensive to and about people who do not deserve to be offended. If she were referring, for example, the Lord's resistance army, then her terminology would be quite appropriate, just as it would for the SS-Totenkopfverbände.

I know it's naive, but I am against racial prejudice in such matters.

In reply to Postmanpat:

We're not going to get any further on this. I think if you make remarks which have glaring racist implications, then you're using racist language, and it's perfectly sensible to infer racism from it. Bad luck to those who aren't bright enough to avoid glaring racist implications by mistake.

You appear to think that unless the racism is completely explicit, we should all give the benefit of the doubt - even when the person making the comments has form as being a massive racist!

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I thought that was how the law worked. You know, the bloke who I suspect burgled my home isn't convicted on the basis somebody else suspects he burgled their home, even though he "looks dodgy and walks on the cracks in the pavements"

.

In reply to Postmanpat:

What if its a nice sunny day. You come home, disturb a burglar and call the police. They send a dog and handler and find a man in your neighbours shed. He claims to be sheltering from the rain and doesn't know how a bag of your property got to be in the shed with him.

In reply to marsbar:


Then you have a case but this is not the equivalent.

In reply to Morgan Woods:
The only possible argument that I can see for declaring that Katie Hopkins isn't a racist is that I believe she thinks everyone to be scum except rich, white conservatives. I don't think she likes anyone else.

In reply to Bob Hughes:

I think people are either plain ignorant or in denial that this is now the law. The accompanying advice on considering when to move to prosecution means she may be unlikely to be going to court but I have no doubt she is overstepping the line (and given legal advice probably knows all of this and doesn't give a shit).

As for Simon4..... the internet and news is full of people expressing disgust at the drownings but since when did a worse thing remove the right or need to deal with a lesser linked evil.

In reply to Offwidth:


There is a very good argument that if the Oi Polloi don't understand a law that is designed to modify the behaviour of the masses then it is a bad law, I'm not sure you can blame people for not being clear of the law in this case.

Here we have;

a) Trained Lawyers
b) that claim to represent other Trained Lawyers
c) whose specialist subject is Race and the Law and Trained Lawyers

and yet they seem incapable of describing why this behaviour is against the Law, or if it is not against the Law, what sort of Law we should have, that would make this behaviour against the Law.

It seems unreasonable for people to argue on the one hand that it up to the Courts to decide when behaviour is against the Law whilst also suggesting that each citizen should be able to decide for themselves how the Courts will view each case put to them.

The problem with saying that each case should be judged on it's merit is that no-one knows exactly what an individual Court will decide, beyond that we also have an Appeals system to test those decisions, so the outcome contestable.

Saying that the Law should be indeterminate enough to encourage people to stay well within the safe zone of not having their behaviour tested seems like advocacy for more bad law, not justice.

In reply to wbo:

Wouldn't she then be disliking rich black or Asian Conservatives?

Perhaps she's just randomly bigoted?

Who cares...if nobody listens she might go away?

In reply to Timmd:




Good logic. She should be a decent sort and dislike all Conservatives equally...

In reply to Yanis Nayu:
I hadn't thought of that.

A lovely family friend is a Tory, she's very self motivated and determined and struggles to see why everybody can't pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, so the so called 'harsh but fair' (I wonder if it might just be harsh) way of looking at things chimes with her, I think.

Each to their own point of view I guess...

In reply to winhill:

My point was the 'freedom of speech' distance from legal limits many claim here are clearly not the case. We can all read what the law actually says irrespective of how good or bad a law it is (or any practicalities in prosecutions)

In reply to Timmd:

I think everyone should be encouraged to be self reliant.
Those who are not able to be should ideally be looked after by their family.

However there are people who aren't able to look after themselves and the whole idea of society is that we share the burdens.

The problem as always is drawing the line. People have become less self reliant as as this suits the motivations of other people.