OF course, what the law is designed to prevent is not 'a handful of cranks' denying that the Holocaust took place, but writers of rather greater worth daring to pry into the nooks and crannies of the legend. -- David Irving

London, Wednesday, April 3, 2002

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Leader Column

LIBERTY TO THINK ILL

BRUSSELS is proposing a new law to restrict what Britons may say or think. Under the European Commission's plans, racism and xenophobia would become crimes in Britain for the first time, carrying prison sentences of two years or more.

The draft proposals define racism and xenophobia as feelings of hostility to individuals based on their "race, colour, descent, religion or belief, national or ethnic origin". If they are put into effect, the police will be able to send anybody suspected of these offences for trial anywhere in the EU, without having to go through the current extradition procedures.

Apart from being a blatant attack on the British citizen's freedom of speech and thought, the proposals contain an obvious absurdity. If it is to be an offence to disapprove of an individual because of his beliefs, then it must surely be an offence to disapprove of him for believing in racism or xenophobia.

David Irving comments: OF course, what the law is designed to prevent is not "a handful of cranks" denying that the Holocaust took place, but writers of rather greater worth daring to pry into the nooks and crannies of the legend, seeking to sort out what is true and what is chaff -- for example, how such pogroms occur, and why; and of course make comparisons between, for example, Auschwitz and Dresden (one of the criteria which in the considered opinion of Prof. Richard ("Skunk") Evans, expert witness in the Lipstadt trial, sufficed to mark a writer as a "Holocaust denier."    Even the appeal court in that case admitted it could not define what made a Holocaust denier; we marvel at the ease with which the seven European nations other than Britain have blithely passed such a statute into law. If it comes into force in the UK, I shall endeavour to be the first to offend -- assuming that I haven't already, because this kind of law has a tendency to be retroactive.

The officials who drafted these proposals would make criminals of themselves, by the very act of proposing to imprison others for their beliefs. This is not merely a smart-aleck point. It goes to the heart of a fundamental question of liberty: who decides which beliefs should be lawful, and which should not?

Under the commission's plans, a new offence of trivialising or denying Nazi Germany's mass-murder of the Jews would also be introduced into British law. Similar laws against "Holocaust denial" already exist in seven countries, including Germany, France and Austria. But that is their business.

Their history is very different from ours. In Britain, the state has no compelling need to imprison the handful of cranks who deny that the Holocaust took place - or the comedians who make tasteless jokes about it. The truth that the Holocaust did happen appears all the more unassailable for the fact that Britons are free to deny it if they wish.

We have plenty of laws to prevent people from inciting others to violence, and it is sensible that we should. But the Government is absolutely right to resist this latest foreign assault on British freedom, and must not compromise on it.

"Blair shies away from EU law on Holocaust"

London Evening Standard editorial: "Thought Crimes"

Auberon Waugh asked: "I cannot help asking myself what sort of truth requires these sanctions" after Germany fined David Irving $20,000.