Rowan Atkinson warns that banning ‘incitement to religious hatred’ is a bad idea. The Home Office lays out exactly what is covered:

4. What will the new offence not cover?

Of themselves, the following would not be caught by the offence:

…

* proselytising one’s own religion or urging followers of a different religion to cease practising theirs; for example Christians claiming that Jesus Christ is the way the truth, the life and the only way to God, Muslims exhorting people to submit to the will of Allah, or Atheists claiming that there is no God;

…

However if a person were to use threatening, abusive or insulting words, actions or material with the intent or likely effect that hatred would be stirred up whilst undertaking the actions listed above, then by definition, they could rightly fall into the scope of the offence.

You see that right there? Threatening, abusive or insulting words will henceforth be a crime. I now present for your enjoyment two well-known quotes:

“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

“O ye who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you,, and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty (unto Him).”

They are from The Bible and The Koran respectively, and chosen for their infamy, not their extremity. There are indeed worse examples tucked away in these vicious little murder manuals. It’s hard to see how these quotes are anything other than an exhortation to religious genocide, which is explicitly banned under the new law.

Blunkett will thus be doing an unprecedented service to the country; that is, the outright criminalisation of Abrahamic religion and the jailing of 80% of the population.