Tough new regime to deliver life of harmony doesn’t match the hype - John McLellan

She might have a little less moolah than Taylor Swift, but I’d bet a signed first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone that JK Rowling will not be applying for a job anytime soon.

Protestors against the new Hate Crime Act in Soctland gathered outside the Scottish Parliament in a rally organised by The Glasgow Cabbie aka Stef Shaw and The Scottish Family Party. Picture: Lisa Ferguson

Not that it matters, because having been the subject of complaints under the new Hate Crime laws, Ms Rowling’s social media thread about gender identity will not be recorded as a non-crime hate incident (NCHI), so won’t show up in enhanced disclosure checks some employers seek for new recruits.

Contrast that with MSP Murdo Fraser whose relatively tame message about a Scotsman article on gender identity by Susan Dalgety was recorded as a NCHI and led to the complaint going to the Ethical Standards Commission.

Confusingly, that was before the new Hate Crime and Public Order Act was supposed to have toughened the law.

The publicity has heightened awareness of both existing and new laws, making it an offence to incite hatred about particular characteristics, now including transgender identity.

Former Scottish Police Federation chief Calum Steele estimated there were nearly 4000 hate crime reports in 24 hours, as many as a normal year.

Having called out ten trans women as men, Police Scotland quickly announced Ms Rowling had not committed a crime and then confirmed it would not be recorded, presumably meaning scores of complainers will either be told their report was groundless or hear nothing at all.

Each complainant will have expected action and one of those named as a man, Katie, formerly Martin, Neeves told BBC Scotland she had been inundated with hate messages, and clearly felt hatred had indeed been stirred up.

It was just as clear Katie Neeves was not alone, each complainant infuriated the hoped-for crackdown has not materialised.

This is the fundamental problem the SNP apparently hadn’t seen coming, generating expectations on both sides of a highly emotional debate and satisfying no-one, not in the short term anyway.

People who feel hatred has been stirred up and cite nasty social media messages as evidence, find the tough new regime to deliver a new life of harmony and universal acceptance, doesn’t match the hype.

First Minster Humza Yousaf said Islamophobic graffiti near his Dundee home showed the need for the new laws, but it would have been covered by existing laws in which racial prejudice would be an aggravating factor.

If JK Rowling won’t be prosecuted for “misgendering” trans women as men, including double rapist Isla Bryson (known as Adam Graham at the time of his attacks) and Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre chief executive Mridul Wadhwa, what is the new law for, they might ask.

Maybe the bar to meet the new criminality test is high, and maybe the bar is just as high for recording an incident after police saw how the Murdo Fraser complaint caused more trouble, and a threat of counter-legal action.

But it doesn’t mean that freedom of expression has not been chilled, even if JK Rowling has thrown her Ps and Qs at Police Scotland instead of minding them.

With police being goaded as complaints mount, complainants feeling let down and now total confusion about what is or isn’t a hate incident, JK Rowling has effectively made a mockery of what the SNP hoped would symbolise its vision of a progressive Scotland.

Instead, it’s an embarrassing farce and as big a fantasy as Harry Potter.