Daniel Sanderson at the Times has background on Tom Harlow.

When Tom Harlow launched the Cabaret Against the Hate Speech at the start of 2023, it was badged as a symbol of “queer joy”, which aimed to inject a bit of fun into politics and even tempt opponents to “dance along”.

Two and a half years on, however, the Glasgow-based drag queen has rapidly become one of the most polarising combatants in the crowded field of Scotland’s culture wars.

Except of course that one whole side of that particular “culture war” is not a combatant at all. It’s not rival gangs squaring off, it’s one gang trying to demolish the rights of half of all human beings. We – women – didn’t start any war. We just abandoned our role as the sex that doesn’t matter, the sex that is weak and clueless, the sex that can be raped and mocked and choked.

Harlow, whose real name is Thomas Michael Moncrieff Carlin, has carved out a niche counter-protesting events, often organised by gender-critical women, by blasting loud music at them from a huge, portable sound system.

Yeeeaahhh that’s not counter protesting. That’s preventing. That’s silencing. That’s drowning out. It’s hostile and rude and aggressive. It’s not cute.

Until September he was only really known to those embedded in the Scottish arts scene or LGBT activism.

That changed in early September when he attended a protest organised by For Women Scotland at Holyrood. What appeared to be a minor altercation with Susan Smith, one of the group’s directors, has mushroomed into a political row.

On that day outside the Scottish parliament Smith approached Harlow urging him to turn the music down. Harlow allegedly shoved a rainbow umbrella towards her face. When she grabbed it, Harlow attempted to yank it away. Getting nowhere, Smith simply walked off.

He then filed a complaint with Police Scotland, alleging he had been “harassed and intimidated” by Smith, a 54-year-old former financial worker.

But of course he’s the one who was doing the harassing. He disrupted a protest by women, he was asked to stop by a woman, he shoved an umbrella in the woman’s face. He is the instigator; he is not a victim.

Campaigners argued that the far more serious issue was the police’s alleged failure to protect their right to free speech by allowing one man to disrupt the event. Despite these concerns and initial low expectations for the case to proceed, police have now apparently sided with Harlow, issuing an ultimatum to Smith: accept a formal warning or potentially face being prosecuted for vandalism.

Women have a protest, man makes noise to drown them out, police side with man and threaten woman.

It might as well be 1957.