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.
This decision gives the lie to the Government’s claim that it is committed to human rights. Freedom of speech is the most important human right of all because without it we cannot raise the alarm about any of our other rights being eroded. What it means is, the Government is committed to upholding those human rights it likes – such as Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to respect to privacy and a family life), which has prevented so many violent criminals and illegal immigrants from being deported – but not those it doesn’t like, such as Article 10 (the right to freedom of expression).
I don’t need to rehearse here the reasons why this Act is so necessary. Daily Sceptic readers will need no convincing that free speech now plays second fiddle in Britain’s universities to the need to protect ‘vulnerable’ students – fashionable identity groups like Muslims and trans students, but not jews and gender critical women, obviously – from ‘microaggressions’, ‘harassment’ and ‘discrimination’, i.e., hearing opinions they find disagreeable. But in case you aren’t aware of the full extent of the problem, see this Free Speech Union briefing on the subject.
I fear this brazen and shameless decision is just the beginning and the Government will attack free speech in countless other areas. Get ready for a Hate Crime Act in England and Wales, the criminalisation of ‘Islamophobia’ and an attempt to force newspapers and magazines to submit themselves to a state-controlled press regulator. I set out some more of these fears in a recent piece for Spiked.
The Free Speech Union intends to fight all these attacks on free speech, starting with Bridget Phillipson’s decision. If she intends to block those clauses in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act that were due to be activated on August 1st, as per a statutory instrument laid in the last parliament, we will bring judicial review proceedings against the Government. Stay tuned.
If you haven’t joined the Free Speech Union yet, you need to do so now. It is clear from Phillipson’s announcement that this Government has zero regard for free speech. We need to band together and defend it, otherwise the Government will start picking off its critics one by one.
If you’re already a member of the Free Speech Union, you can contribute to our Legal Fighting Fund here.
Stop Press: Claire Coutinho, the Conservative minister who steered the Freedom of Speech Act through parliament, has written an excellent piece in the Telegraph defending the Act and decrying Labour’s act of vandalism. Worth reading in full.
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Most people still haven’t heard of the Great Barrington Declaration.
Journalists (present company excepted) are dead. Science isn’t getting the oxygen it needs.
Dark times indeed.
Yes, real science is probably dead and so is real journalism. So both professions that are supposed to seek-out the truth are now fighting those who do this.
This is not what one would describe as a positive development for civilization.
I look forward to watching the whole video. Thanks for covering this event!
Doctors are BEGGING parents not to give their children deadly COVID-19 vaccines
https://www.newstarget.com/2022-06-23-doctors-begging-parents-spare-children-covid-vaccines.html
By Arsenio Toledo
Stand in the Park Sundays from 10.30am to 11.30am
make friends & keep sane
Wokingham
Howard Palmer Gardens Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Bracknell
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA
Henley
Mills Meadows (bandstand) RG9 1DS
Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
I like the gentle dig he took at the Gates Foundation.
His characterisation of them calling around to discourage scientists from speaking up against lockdowns as “strange” felt like there was more he could have said but preferred not to.
What a menace to society that organisation is.
If Bill Gates were to get offed, Epstein stylee, what would happen with his foundation? Would it continue its sinister work?
I despair that so few of my friends have heard of the Gt Barrington Declaration. Where have they been? It was Lockdown Sceptics that highlighted it for me and I signed. It was so obvious from say 3-4 months into 2020 that we were being taken for a ride. I know many saw it earlier. Sad to reflect that there are still many living under the illusion that the “Great Lockdown” was a “Good Thing” (anybody remember 1066 and all that?).
Even when, in March 2020, COVID-19 was no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) in the UK.
I have refused the vaccination and I’m damn glad I did now, even though it cost me in terms of being unable to visit an elderly relative in Norway until September 2021 – and even then I had to go into quarantine.
We have been totally taken for a ride by our Government, WHO, pharmaceutical companies and The Gates Foundation, inter alia. I’m bemused that the Valneva vaccination (a “dead” vaccine) contract was cancelled by Javid (resulting in a huge compensation to Valneva). WHY? I can only assume that it was because of pressure from the likes of Pfizer…Can’t have competition, can we? To say I’m spitting feathers would be an understatement.
For Pfizer, it’s not enough to be given immunity. They have acted like this since the late 1960s
The Great Barrington Declaration, signed by a million lay people, thousands of doctors, researchers and scientists. The authors, three of the smartest minds, who risked their livelihoods, prestigious professorships to help all of us. Countless state governors in the USA have asked for their advice and incorporated the advice into legislation. One has to wonder why people like Justin Trudeau, Boris Johnson, Sage, NIH, FDA, MHRA, Macron,Draghi, Ursula Leyden did not follow their advice.
Did anyone hear Kuldorff give a valid reply to Toby’s question ? Full credit to him for posing so much resistance to pandemic politics, and yet … he seems far to respectful of the ‘vaccine endpoint’ and seems to accept vaccine efficacy without references to live trial evidence :/