IT is with annoyance that Mr Hannan writes for a further time on the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act (OBFA) – without appreciating that it is one of the SNP’s biggest own goals in office (Repealing the Football Act sends out all the wrong signals and led to Sunday’s madness, The National, March 13).
Anyone with working ears knows fine well that crowds baying for Fenian blood and its ilk has not come close to quietening down over the past six years. Ipso facto, the OBFA is almost completely ineffective at doing what it was purportedly intended to do.
Mr Hannan argues that such individuals “can now be tribalistic without fear of conviction”. This is abjectly false. Breach of the peace and its racial and religious derivatives encompass the legal and judicial tools to prosecute and punish sectarian behaviour – and they were always there. The OBFA was the result of a quick-fix “something must be done” policy-making exercise, and slammed home by majority.
What the OBFA did do, however was criminalise something as legally flimsy and wide-reaching as “offensiveness” – making criminals out of otherwise harmless people, dragging them needlessly through the court system when simpler corrective means would do. This is why this law is hated, not simply “flawed”, despite being brought in with reasonable intentions.
It is the only non-money act in Holyrood history not to get cross-party support. Dozens of amendments to clarify and codify language, intent and policing responsibilities and powers were turfed out, leaving a weak, highly subjective piece of legislation which has been lambasted by academics, ridiculed by lawyers and dismissed as “mince” and a “nonsense” by judges.
Furthermore, the only time we heard pleas of “amend, don’t repeal” was when the Government knew they didn’t have the votes to stop it – which makes their appeals to do so ring hollow and false.
And if anyone wastes their keystrokes or breath arguing that the OBFA’s repeal “gives a green light” to anything, I’d remind them that this ineffective act was in force on Sunday. In force, and yet powerless. Rather than arresting a single person for this loathsome religiously motivated breach of the peace – actively dealing in hate speech – the police actively facilitated the illegal march. Operational decisions are understandable – but the images of police going along with the hate mob implicitly gives a far more potent green light to further such things than any repeal of a law which was hopelessly ineffective.
Ultimately, it’s going to be repealed. There’s an opportunity here to reconsider the political and social approach – and this is where minority government, open leadership and the Holyrood committee system can gain a wide appreciation of what is needed to be effective.
A subsequent period of analysis and reaching out to affected people, football clubs, fans’ organisations, domestic violence organisations and anti-sectarianism groups to develop a multi-faceted policy platform geared towards truly tackling Scotland’s shame, and promoting an inclusive environment at football games is the correct step.
The tools for tackling sectarianism, as with all other successful attacks on bigotry,
are in communities and classrooms.
If every subsequent sectarian outburst is a twee “told you so” from the SNP and nothing more, it leaves further argument and formulating improved policy exclusively to the Labour Party. It has them reap the benefits from removing this ineffective, illiberal law and seeking out stronger social policy.
It is a victory they need not have.
Scott Macdonald
Edinburgh
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