Fresh, hot, steaming nonsense.

Not content with predicting doom at every turn for Brexit, Continuity-Remain now have a new stick to beat their particular dead horse with:

"Recorded hate crimes jumped by 29% last year - exacerbated by terror attacks and the EU referendum, new figures show.

Over 80,000 offences where hate crime was deemed a motivating factor were committed in England and Wales over the last 12 months - up from 62,518 in 2015/16.

The figures, released by the Home Office on Tuesday, represent the largest jump since records began in 2011.

:: Types of hate crime recorded
Race - 78%
Sexual orientation - 11%
Religious - 7%
Disability - 7%
Transgender - 2%

Some hate crimes had more than one motivating factor, the Home Office said, explaining why the sum breached 100%.

The department revealed there was a "genuine rise in hate crime around the time of the EU referendum" and after the four deadly terror attacks in Manchester and London."

What a terrible, terrible thing; me being white and a leave voter should put myself into a hole and flail the flesh from my body for encouraging such things and not question how any of this arose as an explosion of hate crime...

But...

Here's the thing; when I see such crystal-clear metrics presented as facts and the author, Aubrey Allegretti, state this is entirely down to the EU referendum and teworwism I have to ask: how do you know? Does the actual report indicate an irrefutable causation/correlation? How do they detect "hate" as a motivation compared to normal, hate-less crimes?

Turns out these are all questions are actually quite important to ask.

Whilst Allegretti doesn't link to the report (that would require a certain level of journalistic integrity and thoroughness that only a part-time hack with an irregular blog could muster) I believe she is referring to this report from the home office: no I haven't read it in full so I am happy to be schooled and issue corrections later*, but I think that this particular comment is telling for how they "detect hate" in the overview on page 2 (emphasis in bold my own): 

"In the process of recording a crime, police can flag an offence as being motivated by one or more of the five monitored strands (1) listed above (for example, an offence can be motivated by hostility towards the victim’s race and religion). Figures in this bulletin show both how many hate crime offences the police recorded, and how many motivating factors these offences covered (for more information see Annex B). Figures in this bulletin are therefore dependent on a flag being applied to an offence that is identified as a hate crime."

The short answer as to how they detect therefore is...they don't - at best they guess.



That's not the same thing as saying that these aren't "educated" guesses, but given that the natural progression for "findings" like "increases in hate crimes" is a call for more severe custodial tariffs; I'd want to make pretty damn sure that the proof used to put unpleasant people in chokey is air-tight; otherwise this is just a means of shutting down debate on subjects deemed verboten: will I end up in jail for saying it is not racist to expect Amber Rudd to do her job and deport illegal immigrants who have passed through the system and failed the right to remain? How about if I state the obvious by saying there is a correlation with middle-eastern islamism and terrorist activity and so maybe we should be vigilant about an influx from terror-supporting nations?

The irony of all this is I have seen actual hate crimes occur in my own neighbourhood; days after Brexit a polish shop-owner was beaten outside his store by 2 racists to which I had several friends witness the attack - of course there are racist attacks, and of course they should be prosecuted more severely, but if we are to delineate what crimes are more severe despite similar outcomes the burden of proof needs to be higher otherwise it will rightly become a totem more unpleasant people gather around.

Britain, for all it's flaws and history, is for everyone, and nigh on everyone of every race knows and feels this:

"In addition, a substantial majority of adults across all ethnic groups felt they belonged to Britain. Around 85% of White and Asian adults, and around 80% of adults from Black or Mixed backgrounds felt that they belong to Britain, though the proportion of adults from Other ethnic backgrounds who felt this was lower, at 68%." (3.13, pg16)

I have to question why the Conservatives, even the wets like Rudd and May, would continue to support and exacerbate victim culture like this; it does them no good politically, it alienates their base and continues to exacerbate the lie that racism is still widespread; worse, it gives the police an easy win in box-ticking and target-meeting with no real extra effort. I'm not cynical enough to believe this is being done deliberately but I am certain that it is incompetent.

*: I sincerely hope Ms. Allegretti is willing to do likewise when it is shown she is talking out of her ass later.