The former Conservative MEP has been a pretty good egg when it comes to things like Brexit, the EU, Covid, localism, liberalisation of drug laws which would hurt the gangsters who currently control this market and freedom of speech. He’s been a major voice and a sensible voice for the freedom of both Britain and Britons.

Mr Hannan has just published an article on Conservative Home on the subject of the Darren Grimes case, an article that I agree with in large part although I have reservations about other parts of his article.

First up is the bit that I disagree with. He criticised Dr David Starkey for his comment about how the Transatlantic Slave Trade was not genocide. Dr Starkey can be proven to be correct as there has not been any drop in the Black population in either the West or in Africa because of the slave trade whereas there has been a drop in the populations of other groups such as Jews and Armenians that were genuinely subjected to genocide.

Mr Hannan said this:

We can all agree that his remarks were intemperate, inaccurate and impolite. More than that, they were racist – a word that has been cheapened throughoveruse, but which applies in this case. A racist remark, though, does not in itself constitute a crime. The test is whether anyone hearing it would be stirred to racial hatred. In this instance, it seems vanishingly improbable. The common reaction, as we have seen, was a shudder of distaste at the speaker.

Personally I don’t think that Dr Starkey’s words were racist. Yes maybe he could have phrased his point better but I disagree with Mr Hannan about his claim that Dr Starkey was ‘racist’. By pointing out that the slave trade did not meet the designation of genocide my view is that Dr Starkey did nothing wrong.

To move on now to the issues where I do agree with Mr Hannan, which are on the subject of Darren Grimes in particular and on ‘hate crimes’ in general.

Mr Hannan added:

Hate crimes are one of the places where we hear screeching gears as our politico-legal class pulls one way and public opinion the other. It is incomprehensible to most people that a police force that claims to be overstretched and underfunded can find time to chase a young Geordie journalist (“investigate crimes, not Grimes”, as one wag put it).

There is also a strong suspicion of partiality. Had David Starkey made his remarks in, say, a Guardian interview, does anyone seriously imagine that that paper’s editor would find herself under investigation? Yet, as the public looks on in bewildered alarm, the Law Commission is plugging ahead with its attempts to extend hate crimes legislation even further – this time to include misogyny.

I had high hopes that when the Tories won the December 2019 that they would do something to curb the problem of these corruptive and corrosive ‘hate crime’ and ‘hate speech’ laws Sadly my trust in the Tories on this and so much else, has been misplaced. The Law Commission is looking like it’s going to make the problems with illiberal ‘hate crime’ and ‘hate speech’ laws much worse than they are already.

I do agree with Mr Hannan that there is a large amount of partiality being shown by the Metropolitan Police on the issue of Darren Grimes. It’s not just that Dr Starkey’s words, if spoken to the Guardian for example, would not have elicited this sort of response by the police, we also see police forces being blatantly political. We saw a senior police officer acting in an approving manner with regards to the vandalism to the Colston statue in Bristol and the shameful display of kneeling to BLM/Marxist thugs coupled with the extreme violence meted out to those protesting what is looking like an increasingly useless lockdown policy by Government.

We are now in a situation where we, that is the average British subject, cannot trust our police to be politically impartial. They will give free passes to those who profess the politics of the extreme Left whilst dishing out violence and prosecution to the Left’s opponents. This is a situation that urgently needs to change but I have little trust that this Government will do what is necessary to bring police actions into line with their oath to police Britons without fear or favour. To bring about this sort of change, better politicians from better and less tainted political parties will be necessary.