…is the point. The Holocaust itself isn't. If they'd instead been attempting to seriously criticise the historical account (or even being 'satirical' in a way that didn't involve branding the Jews as evil vermin), they wouldn't have been convicted.

So here we have instances of the use of the POA86 to prosecute and convict both ‘factual’ denial (Birdwood, Griffin, Quinn) and trivialisation (Sheppard, Whittle). With such multipurpose legislation at its disposal, the government has no need of laws against Holocaust denial per se. Anyone who disputes it can test it for themselves by walking around in public holding a placard with the text: “Nick Griffin was right: ‘The Holohoax is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter-day witch-hysteria’” and see how long it takes to get arrested.

As I said, the prosecution, defence and judge at Whittle and Sheppard's trial all made very clear to the jury that Holocaust denial is not an example of incitement to racial hatred. Hence, Holocaust denial is not illegal in the UK. Hence, your suggestion that courts view “minimising” or “trivialising” the Holocaust as incitement to racial hatred is wrong.

Both Griffin and Birdwood were convicted, in part, for their references to the 'Holohoax', the latter in her pamphlet 'The Longest Hatred'. Both were judged to have used 'abusive, threatening or insulting words like to stir up racial hatred', which is a criminal offence prohibited by the POA86.

It's also important to note that other European countries which have laws against Holocaust denial (eg Art. 130 of the German Penal Code which deals with 'Incitement') do not limit the offence to the act of denying the historical truth of Holocaust. It is sufficient to trivialise or minimise it as Griffin and Birdwood were said to have done.

As for Whittle and Sheppard they were convicted of altogether 14 offences under the POA, several of which involved trivialising the H (the Auschwitz holiday camp piece being one). These were said to be insulting to Jews and formed part of their prosecution and conviction.

If that is the case, then the Telegraph have got it wrong. That seems to be the case, which is a shame, because Phillip Johnson is normally pretty good.

Why the fuck should I have to travel all the way to Amsterdam?

For the culture, I mean.

Birdwood and Griffin were convicted on the basis that their literature accused Jews of a conspiracy to destroy the UK (and hence passed the 'actually inciting racial hatred' test.

I'm not entirely clear on *exactly* what material Whittle and Sheppard were convicted for in the end (fairly sure that 'reprinting a Robert Crumb cartoon' doesn't count, for example), but the prosecution explicitly stated throughout their various trials that denying the Holocaust and saying you hate Jews are both legal in the UK – and that Whittle and Sheppard went way beyond that into incitement to RH.

Courts have consistently interpreted minimizing, trivialising or ridiculing the Holocaust as insulting to Jews and therefore grounds for conviction under the offence of incitement to racial hatred

(I'm reminded of the old bad-taste joke about Nazi-sympathising Holocaust deniers – it's like saying you're a Beatles fan but that they never recorded Sergeant Pepper's…)

Here's the link to the non-cherrypicked Parliament discussion. It also states:

8.13 The requirement of double criminality is set out in Article 11:

“A request for transfer of proceedings can be complied with only if the act underlying the request for transfer constitutes an offence under the law of the Member State of the receiving authority”.

8.14 The Explanatory Report states that the principle of double criminality in abstracto, as opposed to in concretu, has been chose in conformity with other EU instruments. “This means that the act underlying the request for transfer has to fit the definitions of the requirements of an offence in both Member States.”

8:14 shows that the conclusion in 8.35 can't be referring to *acts* that Parliament hasn't deemed to be crimes. The only other way it can make sense is if referring to jurisdiction – ie the UK Parliament hasn't decreed that it's a crime for me to mug a Pole in Warsaw, but under these regulations I could be tried in an English court for doing so.

…which is the whole bloody point of the document, isn't it?

According to Sweden, “Transfer of Proceedings in Criminal Matters” is defined as:

The transfer of proceedings entails a request from one state to another, asking the requested state to initiate legal proceedings for an act that is a punishable offence in both the requesting and the requested state.

8.35 Article 5 is both novel and far-reaching: it gives national courts competence to try a criminal offence that is not prescribed by UK law — or, put another way, that the Government has not proposed nor Parliament agreed should be a crime.
———————-

Don't know if they have had an answer as of yet.