Outspoken comedian Frankie Boyle has condemned new laws designed to stamp out religious hatred and bigotry in Scotland as "colonial," "laughable" and "an attack on freedom of speech".
In an interview with The List magazine, Boyle described the legislation, which was passed by the Scottish Parliament last month, as "the ruling classes telling the working classes what to say and think".
Describing the behaviour of Rangers and Celtic fans as "a valid culture", he continued: "You can't come in and say that the opinions those people hold, the songs they sing, the language they use is inferior and invalid."
The offensive behaviour law, which carries a maximum sentence of five years' imprisonment and an unlimited fine, introduces two new offences regarding the expression or incitement of "religious, racial or other forms of hatred" in public or online. It specifically targets conduct during football matches, both in and around grounds and among groups of fans watching elsewhere, in pubs or on big screens, as well as serious threats made on social networks and elsewhere online.
Boyle admitted that sectarianism was "a real problem", but called for an approach that tackled its root causes, rather than its effects. "If we were really serious about this the first step is to end religious segregation in schools. It's a Scottish reaction to think we can get rid of all this with a piece of paper.
"Some of the songs and words contravene laws on racial hatred, and maybe even on inciting violence. But that's a debate that needs to be had. Why aren't we having that? Because it would be really fucking awkward."
The comedian has also drawn criticism for joking about the McCann family in the interview.
Asked whether he had been following the Leveson enquiry, Boyle replied, "Yeah. I saw the McCanns on there and really wanted them to go, 'Could you round it up in the next five minutes, mate? We've left the kids over in Starbucks.' Just to show they can still have a bit of a laugh."
A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives dismissed the remarks as "the latest in a series of ill-judged comments from this particular comedian – a sure sign he is running out of anything genuinely funny to say".
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10 January 2012 12:52PM
What about the Scottish Conservatives running out of voters?
10 January 2012 12:54PM
There are more Frankie Boyles than Tory MPs in Scotland.
10 January 2012 12:54PM
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10 January 2012 12:55PM
Started reading this, and thinking "Boyle's an idiot" after each paragraph. Until I came to the one about tackling the causes of Scottish sectarianism rather than the effects. That's a very valid point. Then I read the McCann "joke", and overall the man is an idiot, with at least one valid point though.
10 January 2012 12:55PM
I predict little sympathy for Boyle here and after his gags about Jordan's son I find I have little time for him myself.
But his point is a good one. Offensive behaviour is not something that requires a law with a maximum sentence of five years in jail. This law will be responsible for at least as many miscarriages of justice as it is justifiable prosecutions.
10 January 2012 12:58PM
Who'd win a popularity contest between Frankie Boyle and the "Scottish Conservatives"?
10 January 2012 1:00PM
Since when were the Scottish conservatives an authority on anything? Meaningful commentators on something approaching sweet FA in Scotland.
10 January 2012 1:00PM
Yup.
10 January 2012 1:01PM
It's good to know that if I wanted to be a famous comedian I could just say ridiculous things that insult people.
10 January 2012 1:01PM
Given that this odious little man makes his living by being offensive, its hardly surprising that he opposes the law!
10 January 2012 1:03PM
'A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives'
What? There's more than one of them?
10 January 2012 1:03PM
I can't be the only one that laughed at that McCann joke?
I can't begin to imagine the hell those parents went through, and what they must feel every time they see something like that in print. However, gut reaction, it was funny, he is a funny guy. I think that says more about me/us than it does about him...
10 January 2012 1:03PM
Next: Harold Shipman outraged by laws on mass-murder
10 January 2012 1:04PM
As with many modern comics, Boyle mistakes being mean and nasty as funny and satirical. It's a real shame that so many modern comics are grown up bullies who target easy and weak targets. It's not big and it's not clever.
10 January 2012 1:06PM
It's Frankie Boyle who's trying to limit our freedom to speak out, by insulting anybody who criticises him.
10 January 2012 1:08PM
There will be division on this of course. The only rational reaction to stadiums full of footballers and their fans is to fill them up with just enough water that they drown but don't spill out.
Boyle is quite right to say that any law that could affect freedom of speech needs to be discussed rather than passed without debate. I'm sure many Scottish football anthems are of questionable taste but I can't imagine anyone goes to a 'soccer' match anywhere expecting any degree of merit, wit or sophistication.
As for the McCann's? Well they are quite clearly hungry to stay in the limelight so should, as anyone that craves attention, expect some that they might not necessarilly like.
10 January 2012 1:09PM
: "You can't come in and say that the opinions those people hold, the songs they sing, the language they use is inferior and invalid."
Frankie Boyle points to the reality that street speech/street culture is not represented by the Parliamentary electorate in Scotland. In an attempt to subvert prejudice, the legislation fails to account for the <b>real social dynamics in place. The public sphere has culture of promoting an ideal anti-oppressive agenda. In reality the conflict arises when the working class, and the
so called 'Ethnic Minorities' are not right on or politically correct enough. There is a lag between the ideal and what is workable. Frankie Boyle has a grasp on situation that politicians and policy workers do not.
10 January 2012 1:10PM
To be honest we don't need more liberties taken away from us, but there's also no need for a Scottish act against offensive behaviour. You're a part of the EU start enacting EU law.
Still I thought McCann joke was funny...and just when I'd forgotten about Madeline too. Here's to hoping she is alive and well somewhere.
10 January 2012 1:10PM
How does his objection to laws that punish certain speech, somehow limit yours?
Do you generally have to stop speaking when someone insults you? I don't think you understand this debate.
10 January 2012 1:15PM
The mcCann joke is funny.
10 January 2012 1:15PM
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10 January 2012 1:16PM
But why? Not, unlike some limelight-seekers, for its own sake, but because they want to continue the search for their daughter and ensure that this search is not forgotten. Craving attention, which you refer to, is one thing, but ensuring that their daughter is not forgotten is something different entirely.
10 January 2012 1:16PM
Um, I can.
10 January 2012 1:18PM
Hasn anyone noticed that the real problem is the lack of a bicameral chamber in the Scottish Parliament? It highlights the lack of any check or balance (of substance) which could prevent such an ill-conceived, undemocratic piece of legislation from being passed in the first place. Could it, and will it, be used in the future to silence opponents of the separatist movement?
10 January 2012 1:19PM
It is also an offence against reality to describe Boyle as funny. No art. No craft. No stagecraft. Just a tedious telling of the so called joke. A pause for the audience reaction and then more of the same.
Watch him. He has NO talent.
As to his remarks about sectarianism at Scottish football matches. They are juvenile, lame and it's not any kind of valid 'culture' that most decent people would recognise.
Since when did he become a champion of the working classes?
10 January 2012 1:23PM
Unfortunately, too many modern comedians refer their offensive remarks for the relatively powerless. That really isn't particularly brave and it is rarely particularly funny. I would have more sympathy with their position if they tried a bit of real satire aimed at the powerful and the elites. Until then, I will assume the likes of Boyle are just playing at being "edgy".
10 January 2012 1:24PM
Maybe this is what Frankie should be doing instead of comedy. Politics, or whatever it is. Commentary? He might enjoy it more and we might find it more funny.
10 January 2012 1:25PM
Frankie Boyle is a really important voice. he mirrors the truth about other's behaviour. Cries of outrage from some are silent in those same people when Cameron and Boris Johnson or George Osborne make 'off the cuff' jokes about disabled people.
Crime against disabled people is not the result of Frankie Boyle jokes but the result of all our prejudices and bigotries. Have you never laughed at a 'tasteless joke', or felt unease when you see a disfigured face. Is spazz a word you have ignored?
I have a grown up daughter who is autistic among other things. She has never had a job. Not because she cannot work or has no skills but because nice people who cry outrage at Frankie Boyle don't want to employ weird people.
Do we talk about those things? No. Hate, fear of others be it in football, race, gender, old people, disabled people, immigrants, lets joke but not too much and lets not change they way we behave. Frankie Boyle makes perfect sense.
10 January 2012 1:25PM
Describing the behaviour of Rangers and Celtic fans as "a valid culture",
There's more culture in a pot of yooghurt than in Rangers/Celtic sectarianism.
10 January 2012 1:27PM
What a tedious, insensitive prat Frankie Boyle is. Since when has being cruel to grieving parents been considered fair game?
I agree that we shouldn't have to have laws to govern what we say, but that's assuming a civilised society. If you listen to this odious creep for more than five minutes you'll soon change your mind.
10 January 2012 1:27PM
True. Then again, why not make a law against it? (Let's return to the main issue here)
10 January 2012 1:29PM
Boyle is right here - they should attack the underlying causes of sectarianism in the west of Scotland, rather than stamping out the singing and chanting - which is mainly posturing any way, and surely impossible to police - most of these people aren't hostile to those of the other faith in their everyday lives.
But there is a minority who engage in sectarian violence and bigotry away from the football ground, and the reasons that enable and encourage this sort of behaviour, such as segregation in education, are what needs to be tackled.
10 January 2012 1:29PM
I genuinely have enormous sympathy for the McCanns.
But I cannot understand how the dreadful thing that happened to them excuses the way they left Maddie unattended...
10 January 2012 1:29PM
I'm no fan of the man, but
makes perfect sense.
10 January 2012 1:30PM
To all those who say that Frankie Boyle is not funny.
Frankie Boyle tells jokes.
Certain people laugh at these jokes.
Therefore, at least some people find him funny.
He might not be funny in your opinion though.
10 January 2012 1:31PM
Frankie - how come other countries have Catholic schools and no sectarian problems (40k teachers & lecturers teaching 800k+ pupils and students in England & Wales). Bigotry isn't taught in schools, it's taught at home by parents. It's been tacitly accepted for years and this new fig-leaf won't sort it.
This law is not even ill-thought out, it's ill-conceived - a cd can be bought in a record shop on Princes Street, but sign the same songs at a football match and it might get you a criminal record. Daft.
10 January 2012 1:32PM
Started reading this, and thinking "Boyle's an idiot" after each paragraph. Until I came to the one about tackling the causes of Scottish sectarianism rather than the effects. That's a very valid point. Then I read the McCann "joke", and laughed out loud.
10 January 2012 1:32PM
I'm not a huge fan of Boyle, but he certainly has a point here. It's the root causes that need to dealt with.
10 January 2012 1:33PM
Frankie Boyle is spot on. There were around 650 sectarian offences in Scotland last year, nearly all of which fall into the category of 'minor'. > 40% of these offences occurred during during an arrest i.e. somebody gobbing off at the police as they got lifted. < 30% occurred at football matches.
The notion that someone should be jailed for 5 years for saying something offensive is the most offensive thing about this law.
10 January 2012 1:34PM
Yes.
Ally to that the fact that the main opposition parties have been leaderless for a while too.
10 January 2012 1:35PM
Racism is never acceptable, so how can it ever be "valid"? He's right that the root causes need to be addressed but that doesn't mean the symptoms should be tolerated in the mean time.
10 January 2012 1:35PM
The fact is the McCanns joke is funny... Harsh, but then they never had to face any charges for poor parenting so their victim status isnt that high in the eyes of many...
10 January 2012 1:35PM
I smiled at the McCann joke - that doesn't mean I find the McCann's horrendous and unimagineable situation funny.
As Ricky Gervais said:
It's like when Ricky told the story on Desert Island Discs of the vicar being briefed for Ricky's mother's funeral on what kind of lady Mrs Gervais was and one of his brothers (jokingly) says 'she was a keen racist'. The vicar says 'I can't say that' so the brother says 'oh, well she liked gardening'. The first time I heard that I thought it was really funny. Not because racism is funny, it's not - but the mental picture of the vicar mentioning it amongst the other warm memories of a sweet old lady at a solemn service just caught me.
10 January 2012 1:36PM
I thought the sectarian abuse in Scotland was based in colonialism, as in Scots planters colonising Norn Ireland, with Scots protestants and Scots catholics feeling deep animosity toward each other because of perceived colonial crimes.
10 January 2012 1:37PM
Plus, the McCann family and the Jordans (or however they are to be grouped) are just as worthy of a good verbal kicking than anyone else.
One left a child in charge of twin babies and the other went out partying while pregnant.
Both tragic, but both utterly avoidable.
10 January 2012 1:39PM
frankie say:
"the ruling classes telling the working classes what to say and think".
is that his big thought for the day?
is this is as deep as he gets?
isn't this just talk for its own sake?
its not even pubtalk. that's just flatulence.
This is rambling, roaming talking to the walls kitchen-sink-talk.
thinking that should have gone down plug hole with the dishwater.
everything frankie say is frankie's revenge for being told what he can't say his whole little life.
mumble mumble mutter mutter grrrr grrrr.
10 January 2012 1:40PM
Undoubtedly it's a mean joke about the McCanns but it's not at Madeleine's expense, it's at the expense of her parents. I truly sympathise with them because of what happened but ultimately they did leave their kids on their own - you can't blame someone like Frankie Boyle, with his particular brand of humour, for capitalising on that.
10 January 2012 1:40PM
You can say that, but you should make that point through argument and behaviour - rather than idiotic draconian legislation which only antagonises people.
But trust the fat ugly ogre to piss about and try to make cheap political statements at the behest of Scottish folk. What a liability he is.
10 January 2012 1:41PM
I always love the way comedians who makes millions of people laugh are described as 'not funny' on this site.
The McCann joke made me laugh and you'd have to turn logical somersaults to describe it as being particularly offensive.
And he's right about the new law. It's attacking the symptoms instead of the disease.
10 January 2012 1:42PM
To me this read:
"Actually a half decent point, another decent point, and another... shit, I've not told a crap insensitive joke for a good five minutes... TA DAH!".
Religious hatred laws are a tricky one. One one hand I hate to think of anyone persecuted or prejudiced for their religion, and would fight for their right to practice whatever religion they want (that doesn't interfere with others' rights to do the same), but on the other I'd hate to think it was illegal for me to criticise, satirise or wholeheartedly ridicule the religion itself. It's particularly pertinent with the rise of faith schools under the Coalition that the freedom to do so isn't eroded. While these laws seem thought up with well-meaning to solve one particular, difficult issue, you've got to be wary of how they can be applied elsewhere.