That’s Debatable!

The first quarter of 2024 was the FSU’s busiest yet for free speech case work and we begin by reflecting on what insight this gives us into the state of cancel culture in the UK. Moving to the global scale, The Guardian last week revealed the headlines from Article 19’s Global Expression Report 2024. According to the analysis, more than half of the world’s population cannot speak freely. We dig into the statistics for the UK and focus on the troubling longer-term trends revealed by the analysis. Over the last ten years or so, the UK has fallen from the mid-range of the ‘open’ category to the bottom with a score of 81. But we are not alone. Article 19’s report reveals how over the last decade, 6.2 billion people across 78 countries experienced a deterioration of their freedom of expression while only 303 million people across 18 countries saw improvement. We end with an article published in Spiked by one of the FSU’s founding directors and Advisory Council member, Inaya Folarin Iman. She argues that instead of claiming that hate-speech laws are being weaponised against ethnic-minority Britons, outlets such as Channel 4 News ought to do more questioning of the need for hate-speech laws in the first place. As Inaya says in the article, “If you call for censorship of so-called hate speech, it will eventually be used against you”, before concluding that “the moral of the story is that we should do away with all hate-speech laws”.
‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

Ben spoke at the launch of SEEN (Sex Equality and Equity Network) in Parliament last week and made the point that the FSU has handled over 700 cases relating to gender critical beliefs. It’s perhaps not surprising, therefore, that sex and gender feature in our first main item. The Telegraph reports how civil servant and FSU member Eleanor Frances is crowdfunding to pay for an employment tribunal against two government departments on several grounds, including indirect discrimination based on her philosophical beliefs. Jill Levene, FSU legal counsel, is quoted in the article, “Eleanor’s treatment is a clear example of a civil service that has been captured by radical progressive ideology”. This week, the FSU also helped out in the academic world. Senior administrators at Cardiff University decided a panel discussion on ‘Academic Freedom in the UK’ wasn’t an ‘internal’ event, leaving organisers scrambling to find £1,500 to pay for security and venue hire. We were able to step in via our Mactaggart Programme and stump up the cash so the event can go ahead. Next up, an article by Ed West in The Spectator caught our eye. It exposes the ongoing attempts to erase the Anglo-Saxons, which includes, for example, the renaming of the “International Society of Anglo-Saxonists” to the rather less evocative, “International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England”. Such tactics will be familiar to anyone au fait with the ambition of the ideologues to interpret our history through the dismal prism of “whiteness”, “privilege” and “decolonisation”. We end with the case of Professor Nana Sato-Rossberg and the refreshing news that we are allowed to make enthusiastic comments about a person’s country of origin. In reaching its conclusion, the Employment Tribunal panel said that it had “reminded itself” of the following passage from Justice Underhill’s ruling in Richmond Pharmacology Ltd v Dhaliwal [2009] IRLR 336: “Dignity is not necessarily violated by things said or done which are trivial or transitory, particularly if it should have been clear that any offence was unintended. Whilst it is very important that employers and tribunals are sensitive to the hurt that can be caused by offensive comments or conduct (which are related to protected characteristics)… it is also important not to encourage a culture of hypersensitivity or the imposition of legal liability in respect of every unfortunate phrase.”
‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

Today we take a slightly different tack and explore the 1999 film ‘The Matrix’, which imparts a deep well-spring of metaphors for describing cancel culture. In addition to being an action-packed blockbuster, the movie touches on philosophical ideas from such luminaries as Lewis Carroll, René Descartes, Plato and Immanuel Kant. Moving on to looming free speech battles, we were concerned to see Ali Milani, national chair of Labour Muslim Network, quoted in The Telegraph saying, “We have to show we are taking Islamophobia seriously, in legislation and in our own party structures”. This will ring alarm bells for all listeners familiar with the recent essay on Islamophobia penned by Tim Dieppe. We agree with Tim that if the proposed APPG (All Party Parliamentary Group) definition were to find further purchase in government, it could rapidly lead to blasphemy law by the backdoor.
‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

FSU General Secretary, Toby Young, was nearly abducted last week by the infamous Hate Monster during a visit to Scotland. Video footage shows Toby finally triumphing over the beast, which he describes as “a cartoon creature that looks like a hairy pepperoni”. The Pepperoni of Hate would doubtless approve of VisitBritain’s latest language guide. As reported in the Mail and by the FSU’s Communications Officer, Freddie Attenborough, the flagship tourism agency has told workers that in order to foster a “culture of belonging”, they must not use words such as ‘blindspot’, ‘blackspot’, ‘man hours’ – even ‘powwow’. Such language is not sufficiently inclusive, apparently, alongside lots of other words and phrases that have been “used for generations”. Eagle-eyed readers will spot that Freddie has peppered his article with VisitBritain’s banned words, something of which we heartily approve. There’s good news and bad news in our final section as we discuss the new pronoun mandate issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in America and detailed in Unherd. More positively, the Telegraph reports that UK bosses are getting nervous about the corporate diversity drive and rowing back on some of its more extreme manifestations.
‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

We whizz through a couple of this week’s free speech headlines today before providing listeners with an update on Linzi Smith’s case against Newcastle United and the Premier League, a story which has now been picked up by the BBC. Linzi is crowdfunding to assist with her next legal stage under the relevant pre-action protocol. This is a David and Goliath situation as both organisations are well-funded and will have strong legal representation. Any listeners interested in contributing can find all the detail here. An interview of Billy Bragg in The Guardian caught our eye this week, particularly a couple of his comments towards the end of the piece, “My problem with people like Rowling, like Julie Bindel, is really who they are lined up with” and “[..] that’s what I see with Rowling and the others: they are on the wrong side of the table". We discuss how and why people in the culture war seem so keen to identify with their ‘tribe’ rather than the merits of the issue in hand – especially when that issue relates to free expression. We end with an update on the case of Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen. She has already been tried and acquitted by two courts for publicly expressing her Christian beliefs but has now had her acquittal appealed to the country’s Supreme Court, with the prosecution continuing to call for a punitive fine. Executive Director of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Paul Coleman said: “This is a watershed case in the story of Europe’s creeping censorship. The state’s insistence on continuing this prosecution after almost five long years, despite such clear and unanimous rulings from the lower courts is alarming. The process is the punishment in such instances, resulting in a chill on free speech for all citizens observing.”
‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

Toby Young has written a sobering piece in this week’s Spectator, surveying speech-restricting laws in the works across the world, from Poland to Canada – the latter threatening to establish a form of speech precrime. While it is troubling to see how far free expression has dropped down the priority list of governments, Toby ends with a call to practical action, “I think the time has come to set up a Canadian Free Speech Union. If you’d like to help, email me on tobyyoung@freespeechunion.org”. Meanwhile back at FSU(UK) HQ, we’ve just had our busiest three months ever in terms of new free speech cases – more than 250. Our success rate remains steady at 74%, while the gender/transgender issue continues to dominate all that we do, accounting for 44% of the free speech cases reported to us so far in 2024. Moving on from facts and figures, an article by Ben Cobley in The Critic caught our eye this week, entitled “On conservative despair”. It presents quite a bleak picture of our cultural moment, but also equips us to understand the times and, as Ben says, sends us back to moments in history when there has been successful fight-back against unwelcome change. We end with a quick signpost to an article by Rachel Rosario Sánchez. She references our briefing note on the EDI Tax and underlines the point that “The Stasi-wannabees running EDI meetings demonstrate that acceptance cannot be compelled, least of all by the authoritarian bullies at the top”.
‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

One of our recurring bugbears is the imperious messaging that has seeped into all corners of British society, lecturing us on what to think and say as we go about our business. A current TV advertising campaign against ageism is a case in point. No-one wants people of different ages to be excluded from society, but it is rather galling to be slapped on the wrist for using harmless phrases like, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. It turns out that local authorities have also latched onto the re-education trend. As reported in The Telegraph, the FSU has been pushing back on councils that have started using PSPOs (Public Spaces Protection Orders) to police every aspect of our behaviour in public – including our speech. As Ben makes clear, we suspect this battle may prove to be a frustrating game of ‘whack-a-mole’ for a while yet. We briefly mention a recent exposé of the FSU's numerous successes in Byline Times before moving on to examine the Cass Review Final Report, which was published last week. Dr Hilary Cass explicitly addresses the toxicity of the ongoing gender debate in her Foreword, “There are few other areas of healthcare where professionals are so afraid to openly discuss their views, where people are vilified on social media, and where name-calling echoes the worst bullying behaviour. This must stop”. The mainstream media has taken proper notice of the Cass review and we ponder how much hope we can reasonably now pin on a change in the direction and tone of the discussion. We end today’s episode with a quick review of the findings from a poll commissioned by the Henry Jackson Society. Among a list of rather depressing statistics is the finding that 52% of the British Muslims polled want to make it illegal to show a picture of the Prophet Muhammed.
‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

As Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act comes to the end of its first week, the number of ‘hate crimes’ reported to Police Scotland has ticked over the 8,000 mark. This was entirely predictable and no doubt reflects a combination of reporting by those keen to make use of the act’s censorious powers and mischievous attempts at exposing its almost comically authoritarian intent. What's also clear is how the new Act has quickly become a major distraction for Police Scotland, which needs to pay its officers overtime, handle the public relations fall out and continue to address ordinary crime. Having now welcomed nearly 1,000 new members to the Free Speech Union, we’ve set up a Hate Speech Hotline in case any of them get into trouble with the police about something they've said. We’ve also put an arrangement in place with Levy & McRea, a top firm of criminal lawyers in Scotland, so that if any of our members are arrested or interviewed under caution for something speech-related we can come to their aid. You can find the Hotline number, as well as detailed instructions about what to do if you’re arrested in Scotland for a speech-related offence in this set of FAQs, here. We move on to discuss a piece of research the FSU released in March entitled, “The EDI Tax: How Equity, Diversion and Inclusion is Hobbling British Businesses”. It was great to see our survey results reported in The Telegraph in an article that highlighted how nearly a quarter of employees going through EDI and/or climate training have been compelled to say things they don’t believe. The release of our report coincided with the publishing of the Inclusion at Work Panel’s recommendations, several of which alluded to problems akin to those uncovered in our survey. We end today with a discussion on Open Data, or rather the lack thereof. Writing in The Times, conservative MP for Harborough, Neil O’Brien, raises concerns that the failure of multiple government departments to publish granular migration data in the way that they used to is potentially frustrating an important debate.
‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

By the time this episode of ‘That’s Debatable!’ is released, the not-so-new Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act will have come into force. We mark the occasion with a dive into an excellent piece by a concerned Scot, writing under the pseudonym C.J. Strachan. The article reaches back to 17th century Scottish history – the case of Thomas Aikenhead – and includes the powerful words that the 20 year-old wrote on the morning of his execution for blasphemy, “It is a principle innate and co-natural to every man to have an insatiable inclination to the truth, and to seek for it as for hid treasure”. With all that has been going on, listeners will not be surprised to hear that we have seen a marked uptick in the number of new FSU members living north of the border. We take a few moments, therefore, to explain how we are configured to support our Scottish members, including an overview of the FSU’s Scotland Office. There is good news to mark in the case of Rachel Maclean MP where we assisted in the successful scrubbing of a Non-Crime Hate Incident (‘NCHI’) against her name. We continue to support Murdo Fraser MSP who is facing a similar battle in Scotland. We end with some April Fools' Day fun, while remaining all too aware of how truth and absurdity are now more difficult to distinguish than ever.  
‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

We’re in Jules Verne’s hands today as we travel around the woke world, from East Sussex in England to Scotland, the USA, the EU, China and beyond. We begin, though, with some research from Finland that was cited on X by Rolf Degen. He remarks on two large studies that suggest high critical social justice attitude scales are linked to anxiety, depression and a lack of happiness. Could this also explain why the silent majority on the non-woke side might reasonably be reluctant to jump into the fight? We're sure, though, that listeners will have discerned an increasing clamouring in recent days around the free speech implications of the Hate Crime Act in Scotland, from the Prime Minister expressing his concern to comedians taking a stand in Edinburgh. Scotland has also been in the news following the alleged recording of an NCHI (Non-Crime Hate Incident) against MSP Murdo Fraser, following a tweet he posted criticising the Scottish Government’s transgender policy. The story was carried by the Scottish Daily Mail and reports how the FSU has been helping Mr Fraser to back a legal challenge against Police Scotland. Next up, we discuss a report published by government advisor, Dame Sara Khan, which highlights threats to the UK’s social cohesion. It describes how 85% of the public believes freedom-restricting harassment currently occurs in the UK, with 60% believing the problem is worse than five years ago. Many of the findings link in with those of the research into anti-blasphemy extremism that we discussed in a previous episode. We also provide an update on the case of Professor Michelle Shipworth and examine an Unherd article by Sam Dunning that outlines the extent of Chinese interference with our higher education sector.
‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.