That’s Debatable!

The Past is a Free Country

‘Britain isn’t a free country’. That’s the title of a recent Spectator article by Ed West and we fear he could be onto something. At the very least, it seems that we are no longer as sure of our freedoms as we used to be. All is not lost, though! The FSU’s success rate on cases now stands at nearly 75%, proving that it is possible to resist cancel culture and win. Also good to see is that we Brits still bristle when our personal freedoms are overtly threatened, as evidenced by a recent incident involving musician Brendan Kavanagh. At London’s St Pancras station, ‘Dr K’, as he’s called on YouTube, had a run-in with a group of Chinese tourists who claimed their privacy was being infringed by the livestream of his piano playing. But, as listeners may already know, this attempt at suppression led only to a far more viral response. The story was even written up in USA Today and Dr K was invited to discuss it live on TalkTV. At the end of today’s episode, we come back to the conversion of Ayaan Hirsi Ali to Christianity and some interesting insight from Professor Richard Dawkins.
‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

In Conversation with Bryn Harris, FSU Chief Legal Counsel

We welcome Bryn Harris, the FSU’s chief legal counsel, to‘That's Debatable!’ this week. He discusses his own personal journey to the FSU together with the broader work of our legal team. Bryn also offers up his general thoughts on what kind of fundamental legal change(s) might be most effective in pushing the UK’s speech pendulum back in favour of freedom. For the final segment of the episode, we discuss the case of Signature Clinic, a cosmetic surgery company. As many listeners may know, the ‘Signature Four’ are being sued for defamation and malicious falsehood after posting honest but critical reviews following a bad experience with the clinic. They wished merely to record their personal experiences on a site designed to allow them to do so and feel they have done nothing wrong but now face potential financial ruin. You can donate to help the Signature Four continue their fight and stand against the use of legal force to silence honest voices – the link to the crowd justice site is here.
‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

Compelled Thought

Using freedom of information requests, the Free Speech Union has been investigating the transgender policies of various public sector bodies, but the document released by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s privacy watchdog, is one of the most egregious we have found. The story was carried by the Daily Mail and it's where we begin our episode today. Included among a series of bulleted suggestions, the guidance states that “ICO staff can support trans colleagues or individuals who are transitioning by… thinking of the person as the being the gender that they want you to think of them as.” Toby Young, our general secretary, is quoted in the article, “The ICO is supposed to be responsible for protecting people’s privacy. How can it be taken seriously in that role if it’s dictating to its employees what they can and can’t think?” For the second half of our discussion, we come back to the issue of misinformation via Andreas Krieg’s new book, “Subversion: the strategic weaponization of narratives” and an interesting review of the book entitled, “When does the truth become disinformation?” can be found here. We link the way that powerful actors like to control the narrative with the recent ITV drama on the Post Office scandal. The success of this piece of television, which for once fully deserves the moniker ‘landmark’, and its effect in arousing the indignation of a nation serves to emphasise – in a positive way – several of the points made in Krieg’s book.
‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

Carl Borg-Neal: Huge Win for Free Speech

It’s been a very exciting start to 2024 at the Free Speech Union where we have been celebrating one of our biggest ever wins, the case of FSU member Carl Borg-Neal. At least £500,000 in damages is now expected to be paid out to Carl by his former employer, Lloyds Bank. As reported in The Telegraph, an employment tribunal has unanimously ruled Carl’s dismissal unfair after he inadvertently used (and immediately apologised for using) the ‘n-word’ during the bank’s race education training. FSU general secretary, Toby Young, said over the weekend that “the financial compensation Carl has secured is ground-breaking. But in addition, the Tribunal made various recommendations that Lloyds will have to follow. Senior members of the bank, including members of the Board, have been ordered to read and digest the judgment, learning, if they did not appreciate it already, that context is everything when deciding whether to dismiss someone for breaching a workplace speech code. The bank also has to inform the Financial Conduct Authority that it got this one wrong – they have to tell the regulator that their dismissal of Carl was substantially and procedurally unfair and an act of disability discrimination. Finally, they must correct their internal records and provide a reference for Carl to future employers”. While most of today’s episode is spent discussing this fantastic win, we also touch on the rather more sobering news that Camden Council is now putting potential suppliers through McCarthy-esque interrogation of their stance on LGBT dogma. Our Communications Officer, Freddie Attenborough, has written a great piece covering the issue in The Critic. Finally, we want to let all listeners know that “That’s Debatable!” is now being published directly onto the Apple podcast app, in addition to all the other popular podcast platforms.
"That's Debatable!" is edited by Jason Clift.

A New Hope

Happy New Year to all our listeners!
We begin with some good news from the Spectator. An article penned by Fraser Nelson, the magazine’s editor, reveals the pressure he came under to cancel Professor Karol Sikora’s appearance at a panel discussion on Britain’s cancer crisis. As Fraser explains, the event sponsor, which had been teed up to contribute £25,000, was concerned that the professor did not align with its “values”. It is heartening that there are still media outlets standing for free expression, even when that means losing money (in this instance, sufficient money to keep a staffer employed for a year). We move on to discuss the FSU’s submissions to two consultations on diversity and inclusion. They closed in December and were initiated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) respectively. Listeners will not be surprised to hear that we expressed our firm opposition to the proposals. We are concerned that they would further suppress free speech in the workplace, a real effect that we have seen repeatedly in our case work. We round off this first episode of 2024 with a look back at the final two FSU events of 2023, our Christmas comedy night, and the FSU annual Christmas review.     
“That’s Debatable!” is edited by Jason Clift.

Free Speech with Teeth

For our final episode of 2023 we zoom in on the higher education sector, where the Office for Students has just published proposals on its complaints process under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. As reported in The Independent, universities, colleges and student unions in England which fail to uphold free speech duties are set to be named publicly and may also find themselves having to pay compensation to successful complainants. Professor Arif Ahmed’s inaugural speech as the first ever Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom is well worth reading in full and sets the tone for how we might expect the new legislation to be applied. We take the opportunity to remind ourselves of the FSU’s own higher education statistics, cases which have emerged out of some of Britain’s most esteemed institutions. Finally, we review a selection of the individual free speech cases in the higher education sector, many of which owe their success to the launch earlier this year of the Mactaggart programme.
We wish our listeners a very Happy Christmas and a 2024 full of free expression.  
"That's Debatable!" is edited by Jason Clift.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

In the world of free speech, it often feels like we take two half-steps forward followed by a troubling leap backwards, and today’s line-up fits that mould. Last week’s infamous US Congress hearings in which the presidents of Harvard, MIT and Penn were seen prevaricating over whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” went against their institutions’ respective codes of conducts has opened the eyes of many. That all three presidents said it depended on the context brutally reveals the extent to which educational authorities have, as Matthew Syed put it in the Sunday Times, “serially genuflected before wokeism”. The unsurprising news from the publishing industry that woke books are flopping is positive news and reminds us of the old mantra, “go woke, go broke”. We discuss whether the publishing industry might now come to its senses and write the books that the few remaining readers want to read. But for this week’s great leap backwards we head to Denmark, which has just introduced a law banning the desecration of sacred texts, a mere six years after the repeal of the nation’s 334-old blasphemy law. Is this our measure of the speed at which the new cultural revolution has taken hold? We end on a note of optimism, however, that so many in the Danish Parliament remain appalled by the new law and fully intend to keep the debate going.
"That's Debatable!" is edited by Jason Clift.

Never Enough Books

Now that the doors on our Advent calendars are being opened with alarming rapidity, we take the opportunity to discuss two seasonally related topics: books for Christmas and the cultural importance of our calendar. 2023 has served up a cornucopia of thoughtful free speech related volumes, tackling issues ranging from misinformation and AI, through to comedy, sport, and religion. In that vein, we would love to hear from listeners with any other recommendations as there is yet time for people to buy these stocking fillers (in addition, of course, to FSU gift membership!). Our conversation on the calendar is motivated by a recent report from the Canadian human rights commission in which it is suggested that statutory holidays in Canada are an example of ‘present day systemic religious discrimination’. In the UK, meanwhile, our own human rights commission is under investigation for suggesting to the British government that the definition of sex in the 2010 Equality Act should be clarified. Apparently, tightening the wording to ‘biological sex’ would amount to ‘actively harming trans people’. In these strange times, FSU events and resources remain an important oasis of sanity and we end the episode with a mention of our new legal FAQ on the parameters of free speech and a run down on some of the exciting events planned for early 2024.
"That's Debatable!" is edited by Jason Clift.

Against Antisemitism

There is little doubt that last week’s FSU panel debate on ‘free speech and the right to protest in the current moment’ was an essential conversation for us to be having in these unsettling times. For those who missed it, the recording is available here. Our expert legal guests deftly laid out the distinctive elements of both public order law and terrorism law, before drawing out comparisons with their practical application on Britain’s streets. Some of the most memorable observations from that discussion include the scope of the public square, especially where some communities close themselves off from the cultural mainstream, and the critical importance of context when it comes to protest chants, for both speaker and listener. Sadly, EDI is back on our agenda as King’s College London now requires staff members seeking promotion to evidence their diversity credentials, even pointing applicants to Stonewall as an example of good practice. EDI’s ‘politicisation of everything’ is also evident in today’s final item on the deletion of anti-indoctrination clauses within government funding agreements. Yet, while the EDI juggernaut continues its destructive journey into every corner of the UK’s institutions, we finish with the thought that the FSU will stay focused on deploying its own counter-offensive, winning over 70% of cancel culture cases as we do.

The Woke Battle of the Sexes

There was some good news coming out of Exeter University this week, where Ben (alongside Peter Bleksley) successfully debated for the motion, “This house regrets the rise of woke culture”. The final result was 84/71, but the vote divided starkly across the sexes with almost all of the women voting against. This particular ‘tendency to woke’ amongst young women is well documented and listeners interested in exploring the phenomenon further might want to look up Freya India’s sub stack, GIRLS. Last week we discussed an article by an anonymous officer serving in the Metropolitan Police. Today we turn our attention to another article written anonymously, this time from within the Home Office. According to the author, civil service political impartiality has now morphed into a culture of ‘stewardship’ with even the permanent secretary of the Home Office saying in 2021 that there was no need to ‘slavishly’ follow government policy on diversity. In our final segment, we discuss a new report from Policy Exchange which has found that one in six teachers are now self-censoring over fears of causing religious offence. This will come as no surprise to listeners familiar with FSU cases and other well publicised events such as the Batley Grammar School protests of 2021 over a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed being shown in the classroom. An underlying theme of today’s episode is the ‘tyranny of pathological kindness’ described by Peter Hughes in his recent article for Unherd.  As Dr Hughes puts it, “to break [the pathocrats’] power means isolating the minority within the minority from the decent people who have become cruel out of fear, contagion and opportunism”. He adds, “in this struggle, we’ll find unexpected allies”; very true and something that we have certainly seen and appreciated at the FSU.