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Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is sincere. I am sure that the Government are sincere in their intentions. I believe sincerely that the Government and the hon. Gentleman are profoundly mistaken in their analysis of the way in which the Bill will work. As I said earlier, part of the reason is the failure to carry out a rigorous exercise to separate race and religion. The fact that those two things have been conflated is at the heart of the Government’s misunderstanding of the issue. Politics and religion are much closer than religion and race, and no one in the House would argue that we should have a Bill of this kind to protect people’s political views, although, having said that, that might be tempting providence.