By dropping the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, Bridget Phillipson has betrayed the fight for free speech and academic freedom in universities, and brought shame upon the Labour Party, says Claire Fox in the Telegraph. Here’s an excerpt:
Less than a week before the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 was to come into force – over a year since it was given Royal Assent in May last year after passing through two houses of Parliament – the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has announced her “decision to stop further commencement… in order to consider options, including its repeal”.
I had to read her statement several times to believe it, thinking at first it might be an anti-Labour “deep fake” designed to imply that the new Government is callously indifferent not just to free speech, but the democratic process itself.
When the Act passed last year, ultimately with cross-party support, I let out a loud sigh of relief rather than a cheer. It had taken months of exhausting arguments, hours of speeches and the watering down of amendments just to modestly enhance the academic freedom duty on universities. This would allow a complaints scheme for students, staff and visiting speakers, who could seek compensation if they suffered a breach of a university’s obligations, and allowed fines or sanctions for higher education providers and student unions if they transgressed.
Despite all of this hard work, Phillipson has with undue haste speedily threatened to cancel a law itself designed to counter cancel culture. She didn’t even bother telling Parliament face-to-face from the dispatch box, which would have at least allowed some push-back or heckles of “shame”, instead preferring that favoured messaging device of pen-pushers – a written communique from on high, on the eve of Parliamentary summer recess.
Like all good bureaucrats, Phillipson has exploited a loophole: the Act was democratically passed, but commencement – usually a technicality – was cynically manipulated in an act of bad-faith betrayal. …
In an interview on Monday, Bridget Phillipson declared “the culture wars on university campuses end here”. Now on Friday, she has declared war on the culture of free speech on campus. Let me assure her, as a parliamentarian and the Director of the Academy of Ideas, surrender is not on the cards. The fight-back starts here.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: If you thought that the new Labour Government was going to be liberal, tolerant and govern Britain from the centre, think again, says Matt Goodwin on X.
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