Sir Keir Starmer was blasted for “forked tongue hypocrisy” after claiming he wants police chiefs to focus on cutting crime rather than scouring social media.
The Prime Minister told reporters on the plane to Rio for the G20 Summit that chief constables should focus on “what matters most to their communities”.
But the comment has provoked fury, with critics claiming Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is targeting “free speech by recording more non-crime hate incidents”.
Children as young as nine are among thousands being investigated over insults logged as non-crime hate incidents.
Critics have warned that it wastes police time, particularly since the number of criminals caught has fallen sharply in recent years.
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice said: “This is forked tongue hypocrisy by Starmer.
“His Home Secretary wants more police suppression of free speech by recording more non-crime hate incidents.
“Citizens want real crimes prevented and actual criminals convicted, not woke tweet policing.”
The Home Office said it would review its guidance to protect “the fundamental right to free speech”.
Addressing the controversy for the first time, Sir Keir said: “Firstly, obviously, this is a matter for the police themselves, police force by police force.
“So they can make their decisions and will obviously be held to account for those decisions.
“There is a review going on of this particular aspect but I think that as a general principle, the police should concentrate on what matters most to their communities.”
Government guidance says non-crime hate incidents are supposed to be recorded when they are “clearly motivated by intentional hostility” and where there is a real risk of escalation “causing significant harm or a criminal offence”.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said the rules around non-crime hate incidents must be “significantly recalibrated”.
He told BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: “We’ve seen nine-year-olds in schools being spoken to and yes, that was wrong. It should not have happened. That was a mistake, the police shouldn’t have done it.”
He added: “I think it needs to be significantly recalibrated. So I think the police should concentrate on investigating crimes.
“The only time I think it’s justified to look at behaviour that falls below the criminal threshold is where there is a real and immediate danger of criminality subsequently occurring.
“Now that is a very high threshold. If someone’s behaving in a way that suggests they might be about to commit a crime, I think that is something the police should pay attention to.
“But things like a Telegraph journalist – a different journalist, not Allison Pearson – commenting on trans issues, for example, or nine-year-olds in playgrounds, both of whom have been caught by this non-crime hate incident net. That is wrong, and the rules, I think, should be changed.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has said people need to stop “wasting police time on trivial incidents” after officers visited a journalist at her home over a year-old tweet.
Allison Pearson, a Telegraph columnist, said police knocked on her door on Remembrance Sunday and informed her she was being investigated for alleged incitement of racial hatred over a post online that has since been deleted.
Mrs Badenoch said such incidents are “like children reporting each other” and that Sir Keir should review laws around them to show he believes in free speech.
