Free Republic

The SNP's power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens has been scrapped - The Greens said the SNP had "sold out future generations" - It follows the government's decision to scrap key climate targets and a pause on the prescription of puberty blockers for under-18s- The SNP will now form a minority government - In a Bute House press conference, FM Humza Yousaf confirmed he is terminating the Bute House agreement "with immediate effect" - While saying he was proud of the deal and that it had achieved successes, Yousaf said it had served its purpose" and it's in the SNP's...

The Loch Ness Centre has reached out to NASA for assistance in a new quest to search for the Loch Ness monster. Following last year’s extensive search of Loch Ness in the Highlands, which included the capture of loud underwater noises and several potential sightings, the centre is eager to enlist NASA’s expertise in their pursuit. Scheduled to coincide with the 90th anniversary of Sir Edward Mountain’s expedition, the latest search will take place from May 30 to June 2. Since the inaugural expedition in 1934 by the Watchers of the Monster, over 1,156 sightings have been documented on the...

Scotland’s new “hate crime” law already is demonstrating how it will be used to squash dissent and free speech. The so-called Hate Crime and Public Order Act, which went into force in Scotland on April Fools’ Day, adds age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, and transgender identity to a list of protected classes. The law provides for various potential punishments, including jail time. The new law has been fiercely criticized by author J.K. Rowling, creator of the “Harry Potter” series, and many others who rightly see it as an attack on the freedom of speech. Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf said...

A paltry one in five people in Scotland are in favour of retaining the leftist government’s draconian new speech law as Humza Yousaf faces the prospect of being removed from power at the general election. A survey conducted by the FindOutNow polling firm has found that just 21 per cent of the Scottish public support the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, which came into force on Monday, criminalising the “stirring up hatred” against several protected classes of people with up to seven years in prison.

15 minute video of Oliver discussing Scotland & the new hate crime legislation.

Mark Steyn is the bestselling author of many books, including America Alone, After America, and Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech and The Twilight of the West. His previous incarnations include broadcaster, film and theatre critic, and jazz musician. But for the purposes of this interview, it’s his role as a campaigner for free speech where I think Steyn deserves the most credit. He was the man warning us about demographic decline and the dangers of Islamic immigration two decades ago. He successfully campaigned for the repeal of Canada’s Section 13 hate speech law and, more recently, has been a voice...

Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf is a vocal proponent of his nation’s new hate crime law — which has placed “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling in the crosshairs — but that didn’t stop citizens from using its provisions to report him for hate speech. According to the BBC, thousands of complaints had been made under the new law’s provisions — namely one aimed to stop people from “stirring up hatred” based on certain protected classes — within hours of it taking effect. The news outlet also reported that a large number of the complaints were against Yousaf himself, mostly relating...

Police Scotland was deluged with almost 4,000 complaints in the first 48 hours of Humza Yousaf’s controversial hate crime laws coming into force. Officers are said to have recieved a hate crime complaint every two minutes during the first days of the legislation.

Social media comments made by JK Rowling challenging Scotland's new hate crime law are not being treated as criminal, Police Scotland has said. The Harry Potter author described several transgender women as men, including convicted prisoners, trans activists and other public figures. The new law creates a new crime of "stirring up hatred" relating to protected characteristics. The force said complaints had been received but no action would be taken. Reacting to the news, Ms Rowling posted on X: "I hope every woman in Scotland who wishes to speak up for the reality and importance of biological sex will be...

J.K. Rowling won a significant victory over Scotland’s new speech restrictions after daring the police to arrest her over comments criticising transgender ideology, as Police Scotland said they would not take criminal actions against the Harry Potter author after activists reported her statements to law enforcement. Successfully calling the bluff of the leftist government of First Minister Humza Yousaf, J.K. Rowling struck a stinging blow against the oppressive Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, after she goaded the police to arrest her as the bill came into law on Monday for insisting that transgender “women” are in reality still...

Some notes on the passing scene: ~Yesterday was another dark day for the west's fast-fading freedom of speech. Scotland's new "Hate Crime" law came into effect, formalising (among other things) my perennial gag that in the UK (or at least this miserable corner of it) everything is policed except crime: The wanker coppers will now be spending ever more of their worthless days sitting around monitoring your Twitter account. Oh, don't worry, Scotland's "First Minister" and the plods themselves have been at pains to assure you that they're going to keep a sense of proportion about their new thought-crime powers....

JK Rowling has called Scotland's new hate crime laws 'ludicrous', as she vowed not to delete social media posts describing a transgender TV presenter as 'just a man'. The Harry Potter author was cleared of any wrongdoing by police in England earlier this month over an online post about broadcaster India Willoughby, who complained she had been 'misgendered'. But Ms Rowling has now been targeted by activists who claim she could be prosecuted under the controversial new Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, due to be introduced on April 1. The 58-year-old wrote on X that she would not...

Pity, First Minister Humza Yousaf, the current head chief of the notoriously corrupt SNP, and therefore of Scotland, who took the position not realizing that the country is, dare one say it, white. Which DEI advocate can’t empathize with the Pakistani Muslim’s rage at the persistence of white people in the highlands and all the rest of it too. ... White! White! White people everywhere. Scotland is some 96% white. And Humza Yousaf is running the place. Yousaf’s native Pakistan is 96% Muslim and any Christian who tried running it or just tried announcing it would be murdered faster than...

Apart from Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom executives are entirely non-white.. It’s certainly an interesting phenomenon. Rishi Sunak is serving as the Prime Minister of the UK. Pakistani Muslim settler Humza Yousaf has taken over as the First Minister of Scotland and Vaughan Gething (pictured above), an immigrant from Zambia, will become the First Minister of Wales. Apart from Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom executives are entirely non-white. It’s certainly an interesting phenomenon that reflects a rate of not only demographic, but political change in the UK, that has become more rapid than the rest of Europe. Part of it...

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — In the run-up to the U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, host Britain announced one of its goals of the conference was to consign coal to history. TThat turned out to be easier said that done. Even saying it — in writing — became quite a challenge. Government negotiators in Glasgow wrote and rewrote a paragraph that spells out that fighting climate change requires the world to end coal power, along with fossil fuel subsidies. The wording on coal was weakened one last time just before the gavel came down after coal-dependent India insisted on replacing the...

Sometimes, it’s helpful to receive the occasional reminder that incompetent politicians and toxic identity politics are not the sole purview of the United States. As it happens, our allies across the pond are just as capable of stoking pointless factionalism among minorities and white residents as our own homegrown politicians. The politician providing us this example today is British far-left Parliamentary candidate George Galloway, whose different letters sent to his Muslim and Caucasian constituents are going viral for all the wrong reasons. As seen in this post on the social media platform X, which already garnered 2.3 million views, Galloway...

The recent election of George Galloway in the UK is another chapter in the career of this fascinating politician, famous the world over for appealing to Muslim voters wherever he goes.

Humza Yousaf, the left-separatist First Minister of Scotland, is taking a vacation in Qatar, the Gulf dictatorship that hosts the most senior leaders of the Hamas terror organization. Whether Yousaf, roughly equivalent to a U.S. state governor, intends to meet with the Qatari or Hamas leadership is unclear, but he has previously been reprimanded for holding unauthorized talks on the Israel-Hamas war with the President of Turkey. He has previously argued a peace deal should be brokered through the Qataris. While his official stance on Hamas is that their terror raid on October 7th was an “atrocity,” he vowed the...

Seventy-one years ago, a schoolboy in Scotland was digging up potatoes as a punishment when he discovered an ancient Egyptian statue...Between 1952 and 1984, several antique statues were found on the grounds of Melville House... Teachers and pupils brought each new discovery to museum curators and experts, who identified the statues as ancient Egyptian artifacts, but no one could figure out how they had ended up there...The ancient collection includes a nearly 4,000-year-old statue head carved out of red sandstone, which Maitland described as a "masterpiece of Egyptian sculpture," as well as several bronze and ceramic figurines dating to between...

A radical new law proposed by Scotland’s left-wing government would criminalize parents who take steps to suppress their child’s desire to identify as their chosen gender. Parents in Scotland could soon be sentenced to seven years in prison if they refuse to allow their children to change their gender under plans proposed by the Scottish government. A public consultation was launched on Tuesday on legislation designed to end conversion practices for both sexual orientation and gender identity and includes widespread measures to criminalize parents who refuse to engage in their children’s desire to not just undergo gender transitions but to...