https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14850/uk-tony-blair-free-speech
Disturbingly, the main concern of Blair’s think-tank appears to be the online verbal “hatred” displayed by citizens in response to terrorist attacks — not the actual physical expression of hatred shown in the mass murders of innocent people by terrorists. Terrorist attacks, it would appear, are now supposedly normal, unavoidable incidents that have become part and parcel of UK life.
Unlike proscribed groups that are banned for criminal actions such as violence or terrorism, the designation of “hate group” would mainly be prosecuting thought-crimes.
Democratic values, however, appear to be the think-tank’s least concern. The proposed law would make the British government the arbiter of accepted speech, especially political speech. Such an extraordinary and radically authoritarian move would render freedom of speech an illusion in the UK.
The Home Office would be able to accuse any group it found politically inconvenient of “spreading intolerance” or “aligning with extremist ideologies” — and designate it a “hate group”.
The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has released a report, Designating Hate: New Policy Responses to Stop Hate Crime, which recommends radical initiatives to tackle “hate” groups, even if they have not committed any kind of violent activity.
The problem, as the think-tank defines it, is “the dangerous nature of hateful groups, including on the far right like Britain First and Generation Identity. But current laws are unable to stop groups that spread hate and division, but do not advocate violence”. The think-tank defines what it sees as one of the main problems with hate crime the following way:
“A steady growth in hate crime has been driven by surges around major events. Often this begins online. Around the 2017 terror attacks in the UK, hate incidents online increased by almost 1,000 per cent, from 4,000 to over 37,500 daily. In the 48-hour period after an event, hate begins to flow offline”.