UK Government Has Just Declared War on Free Speech

by Toby Young | The Daily Skeptic

In a written statement to the House of Commons this morning, Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, said the following:

I have written to colleagues… about my decision to stop further commencement of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, in order to consider options, including its repeal.

At present, my Free Speech Union colleagues and I are urgently trying to clarify what it is, exactly, Bridget Phillipson has done or is intending to do. She says in her statement that she has “written to colleagues”, but we’ve contacted numerous MPs on both sides of the House and no one has received a letter from the Secretary of State about the Freedom of Speech Act. I asked a press officer at the Department for Education if he could send me a copy of it, but he said the Department does not intend to publish it. I wonder which “colleagues” Phillipson has sent it to? Or if it actually exists? So much for the new Government’s commitment to ‘transparency’.

Nevertheless, it’s clear that Phillipson intends to do something to stop the Act dead in its tracks, which is a disaster. The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 was the one thing the Conservatives did in the last 14 years to defend freedom of speech. The reason the last government passed this Act was to address the free speech crisis in Britain’s universities (although it only applies in England). The Act does two things: it imposes a new legal duty on universities (and student unions) to uphold and promote free speech; and it creates two mechanisms to make sure they’re discharging this duty – a ‘free speech tsar’ in the Office for Students whom students, academics and visiting speakers can complain to if they think a university has breached their right to free speech, and a new statutory tort enabling them to sue a university if it’s flouted the new duty. Read Full Article >