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Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

In the hon. Gentleman’s introductory remarks, he spoke of the difficulty of distinguishing between religion and politics, or at least the principle of providing for an offence of inciting religious hatred but not political hatred. Has he had the opportunity to consider the position of, say, an Islamic People’s party or Christian Democrats, if their members claim that their critics are inciting hatred against them on the ground of religion, not politics? Does that give them an unfair advantage in the hurly-burly of political discourse?