Local libertarian “Stuart Waitson” based in Dundee has just published a new book “Snob’s law” which covers the Scottish Government fallacies regarding the recent Scottish Sectarian law. The book can be purchased from amazon at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Snobs-Law-Criminalising-Football-Intolerance/dp/0957155905 for £11.95

“Snobs’ Law
Criminalising Football Fans
In an Age of Intolerance”

The book Snobs Law is launched today at a time when Scottish football fans have become one of the most regulated and surveilled sections of society. Author Dr Stuart Waiton of Abertay University believes that, ‘At a time when British politicians are lecturing Vladimir Putin about freedoms abroad, they are increasingly denying them at home’.

We seem to face a strange situation. The imprisonment of Pussy Riot for shouting, swearing and being offensive in a CATHEDRAL in Moscow is denounced as grossly authoritarian and the perpetrators are heralded as heroes. Yet, at the same time, arresting and imprisoning Scottish football fans for similar behaviour while watching a football match is celebrated and seen as a progressive form of tolerance.

Putin is a monster in our eyes while Alex Salmond, despite forcing through the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act (the most authoritarian piece of legislation in recent history), is named British politician of the year. Welcome to the hypocritical world of intolerant tolerance and the rise of cosmopolitan snobbery targeted at the white working class football fan.

Book Summary

A generation ago, football players ‘telling tales’ on one another for name calling, or fans being fined and arrested for singing offensive songs would have been unimaginable. Today the new laws and regulations in football are portrayed as modern and tolerant. However, should offensive words be made illegal? Is this part of a progressive fight against bigotry? Or are these developments authoritarian and infantilising – creating a situation where grown men are treated, and encouraged to act, like children who tell tales on one another?

Snobs’ Law is an examination of the way football fans are regulated. Developed initially around an attempt to understand the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communication (Scotland) Bill, it begins by looking at the way fans were policed in the 1980s by the old conservative establishment who caged fans like animals and were ultimately responsible for the deaths at Hillsborough. This contrasts with current forms of control being introduced by the ‘cosmopolitan elite’, a less overly elitist, politically correct bunch, who are more preoccupied with controlling our minds than our bodies. Words, as John Terry, Luis Suarez and Stephen Birrell have found out, are treated today as though they are weapons, and the ‘offensive’ use of them can result in the loss of liberty.

Snobs’ Law argues that rather than being a tolerant nation, Scotland is becoming profoundly censorious and intolerant. The book concludes that:

Like the ‘extremist’ Muslims who will not tolerate images or words they find offensive, in 2011, Roseanna Cunningham, Alex Salmond and the rest of the Scottish National Party established themselves as our champions of intolerance – they became the equivalent of Scotland’s very own book burners.

Book chapters explore the:

•  prejudices, myths and hatred surrounding football fans.
•  rise of a new form of sectarianism being created by the authorities – based on individuals being encouraged to be chronically offended and persuaded to report opposing fans to the authorities.
• undermining of free speech and free expression in Scottish society that threatens everybody’s liberty.

Stuart Waiton is available for comment at [email protected] .