21 January, 2025
I read the comments on my last letter and some would cause problems in the UK.
One of the comments referred to Keir Starmer and I cannot comment on it. What I will say is that I wouldn’t dare repeat it in the UK, and not because it is false or true.
In the UK, the traditional defence against a charge of defamation and/or libel is that the statement being sued over was in fact true. Now, however, even if the statement is true, it may fall under hate crime legislation and investigations commenced with a view to recording a Non-Crime Hate Order on my police file. If the comments pass a certain threshold I may be investigated for one of several criminal acts, such as harassment or racially inspired hatred. I have used race as an example but it could be any group classed as “protected”.
The Crown Prosecution Service has helpful guidelines:
Hate crime
The law recognises five types of hate crime on the basis of:
Race
Religion
Disability
Sexual orientation
Transgender identity
Any crime can be prosecuted as a hate crime if the offender has either:
demonstrated hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity
Or
been motivated by hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity
Someone can be a victim of more than one type of hate crime.
These crimes are covered by legislation (Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and section 66 of the Sentencing Act 2020) which allows prosecutors to apply for an uplift in sentence for those convicted of a hate crime.
The police and the CPS have agreed the following definition for identifying and flagging hate crimes:
“Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice, based on a person's disability or perceived disability; race or perceived race; or religion or perceived religion; or sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation or transgender identity or perceived transgender identity.”
There is no legal definition of hostility so we use the everyday understanding of the word which includes ill-will, spite, contempt, prejudice, unfriendliness, antagonism, resentment and dislike.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/hate-crime, accessed 15 December, 2024.
If I am investigated and then found not to have broken the above guidelines, then the process itself may be viewed as having been a punishment in itself.
In the meantime, the Labour Government seems to be shooting itself in the foot, not that it will make much difference because they are entrenched in power until 2029.
They managed to lose Treasury Minister Tulip Siddiq in interesting circumstances:
Siddiq, whose role as Economic Secretary to the Treasury included tackling corruption in UK financial markets, was named last month in an investigation into claims her family embezzled up to £3.9bn from infrastructure spending in Bangladesh.
Her aunt is the former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, head of the Awami League, who fled into exile after being deposed last year.
Siddiq, Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate, also came under intense scrutiny over her use of properties in London linked to her aunt’s allies.
The Financial Times reported that one of the properties, a flat in King’s Cross, had been given to her by a person connected with the recently ousted Bangladeshi government.
According to the Mail on Sunday, in 2022 Siddiq had denied the flat was a gift and insisted her parents had bought it for her and had threatened the paper with legal action preventing publication of a story.
Labour sources subsequently told the newspaper the flat had been gifted to Siddiq by a property developer with alleged links to her aunt.
She had referred herself to the prime minister’s standards adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, after questions about links to her aunt, who was ousted last year as Bangladesh’s prime minister.
Sir Laurie said he had “not identified evidence of improprieties” but it was “regrettable” that Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks” of the ties to her aunt.
Sir Laurie spent eight days investigating the allegations after Siddiq referred herself to the standards watchdog.
In his letter, Sir Laurie said Siddiq “acknowledges that, over an extended period, she was unaware of the origins of her ownership of her flat in Kings Cross, despite having signed a Land Registry transfer form relating to the gift at the time”.
He said the MP “remained under the impression that her parents had given the flat to her, having purchased it from the previous owner”.
This had led to the public being “inadvertently misled” about the identity of the donor of the flat, added Sir Laurie.
Sir Laurie said this was an “unfortunate misunderstanding” which had led to Siddiq issuing a public correction of “the origins of her ownership after she became a minister”.
In the letter, Sir Laurie said: “A lack of records and lapse of time has meant that, unfortunately, I have not been able to obtain comprehensive comfort in relation to all the UK property-related matters referred to in the media.
In Bangladesh, there is an ongoing anti-corruption probe based on a series of allegations made by Bobby Hajjaj, a senior political opponent of Siddiq’s aunt Hasina.
Court documents seen by the BBC show that Hajjaj accused Siddiq of helping her aunt to broker a deal with Russia in 2013 that over-inflated the price of a new nuclear power plant in Bangladesh.
He said Siddiq had been clear that she had “no involvement in any inter-governmental discussions between Bangladesh and Russia or any form of official role”.
“I accept this at face value,” he said, “but should note that this visit may form part of investigations in Bangladesh.”
Sir Keir’s Holborn and St Pancras constituency is next door to Tulip Siddiq’s Hampstead and Highgate seat.
They were both elected MPs for the first time in 2015 and have enjoyed a close working relationship.
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyk2e7x42zo. Accessed 23 January, 2025.
Today, it was revealed that a suspended Labour MP, Mike Amesbury pleaded guilty to assault after an apparent drunken brawl that was well publicised on social media. And the Labour party accused the Tories of high-level law breaking during the Covid crisis. There is now a complete lack of trust in the Labour Government.
