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FSU Brings Legal Challenge Against Government for Scrapping Freedom of Speech Act

by Will Jones
3 August 2024 1:00 PM

The Free Speech Union has threatened to bring a judicial review against Bridget Phillipson after she halted the Freedom of Speech Act just days before it was due to come into force. The Telegraph has the story.

The Education Secretary announced last week she had pulled the plug on the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 and would now consider repealing it.

The flagship Tory policy was set to require universities, colleges and student unions to actively promote free speech on campus.

Prof Arif Ahmed, the Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom at the Office for Students (OfS), had also spent a year designing a complaints scheme to implement the law. It would have allowed him to take submissions from academics who had been “cancelled” over their personal beliefs.

The Free Speech Union said the Government’s decision to “kill off” the legislation would make it “virtually impossible for students and academics to challenge radical progressive ideology on campus”.

In a pre-action protocol letter, the first stage before a judicial review, it alleged Ms. Phillipson’s decision to axe the legislation was “unlawful”.

“The Secretary of State was not entitled to act as she has done because she opposes the legislation or its policy. Any repeal of the legislation is a matter for Parliament not the executive,” the letter sent on Friday claimed.

The Free Speech Union also accused the Education Secretary of acting unlawfully by removing protections for “people of certain protected groups”, such as “gender critical persons or those who espouse minority political views”.

It called on Ms. Phillipson to publish proof that she had considered the possible implications of repealing the free speech laws for certain groups.

The Act was introduced after a series of rows over the so-called cancellation of academics and students over their views. They include Dr. Kathleen Stock, a philosophy professor, who resigned from Sussex University in 2021 after what she described as a witch-hunt over her views on transgender issues.

Toby Young, the Director of the Free Speech Union, said: “Bridget Phillipson’s decision to kill off a piece of legislation that enjoyed cross-party support in the last parliament gives the lie to her claim that she’s too high-minded to engage in culture war politics.

“This is a flagrant abuse of political power in pursuit of a narrow ideological agenda. At a stroke, she has made it virtually impossible for students and academics to challenge radical progressive ideology on campus.”

Worth reading in full.

Judicial review is horribly expensive. Please donate to help the FSU save the Freedom of Speech Act here.

Tags: Bridget PhillipsonCancel CultureCensorshipCourtFree SpeechFree Speech UnionHigher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023Judicial ReviewLabour PartyLawfare

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18 Comments
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JayBee
JayBee
1 year ago

“… the 1.4 million claimed sufferers of long Covid.”
Funnily, all of them are ‘vaccinated’.

163
0
George L
George L
1 year ago
Reply to  JayBee

Yeah.. funny that. It couldn’t be that toxic shite injected into people, of that we can be sure.

All those embalmers unable to embalm because of peoples arteries blocked by long rubbery clots were just making it up.. obviously ‘conspiracy theorists’..

Talking of long rubbery clots.. if you’ve a strong stomach.. see below..

https://anamihalceamdphd.substack.com/p/hydrogel-coagulates-blood-and-causes?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

48
0
George L
George L
1 year ago
Reply to  George L

Huge rubbery blood clots..

https://anamihalceamdphd.substack.com/p/huge-rubbery-blood-clots-in-an-unvaccinated?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web

14
0
barrososBuboes
barrososBuboes
1 year ago

How are the 1.2 million that arrived last year getting on ?

75
-1
George L
George L
1 year ago
Reply to  barrososBuboes

Ok I expect.. I doubt they’ve been jabbed!

45
0
Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago

Time to reshare Ed Dowd’s UK data. Lockdowns don’t cause disabilities. Enough of this ridiculous ignoring the obvious. ”The great resignation” indeed!

https://twitter.com/DowdEdward/status/1679185829372268544

46
0
George L
George L
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Ignoring the obvious is the only game in town I’m afraid..

35
0
Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Here’s John Campbell’s latest ( 15mins ) and he takes us through the Australian data, which is shocking and even more so when comparing the adverse effects of the Covid jabs to those from traditional vaccines. At the 2min mark he even states he would never have taken the shots himself had he known what he knows now. Fair play to him for coming out and saying what many are probably feeling. So don’t tell me, you intelligence-insulting and patronizing MSM rag, that any of the above in your article is to do with flaming lockdowns! It’s all lies and you know it! We all know what’s killing and disabling people, both quickly and over the long term.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l6Q2r5VWLo&ab_channel=Dr.JohnCampbell

70
0
George L
George L
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Damn right we do.. the wretched injections, and many of them pushing the things knew they were harmful too..

32
0
Nearhorburian
Nearhorburian
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

But if I knew the virus posed a trivial threat to almost everybody and the gunk couldn’t possibly have been properly tested, why didn’t he?

(I stopped watching him when it became clear that he believed the CCP)

12
-4
richardw53
richardw53
1 year ago
Reply to  Nearhorburian

I think at that stage he simply trusted the establishment. He had no idea of what we know now.

7
0
AEC
AEC
1 year ago

Nothing to do with anything safe and effective?

46
0
George L
George L
1 year ago
Reply to  AEC

How dare you!!!!!!! 😉

23
0
JohnK
JohnK
1 year ago

While it could be that some of us have quit work a little earlier than normal, could it be that the attitude to minor illnesses has changed? A few decades ago, it was unusual to take time off sick due to minor “common colds”, for example. In those days most of them did not want to have too many days off in case it affected their chances of promotion.

40
0
Marque1
Marque1
1 year ago

Sort of on topic. I worry about being injured and requiring a blood transfusion from an infected person. (Vaccinated)

51
-1
gavinfdavies
gavinfdavies
1 year ago
Reply to  Marque1

Don’t worry. It’s unlikely you’d get a transfusion (person to person). More likely you’d get an infusion of red cells from a donor. These are pressed by separating the plasma and white cells, rinsing, then adding saline. Effectively “red cells in brine” if you like. So nothing like small proteins that were floating about in the plasma, and red cells don’t have a nucleus, so no issues there.

11
0
Marque1
Marque1
1 year ago
Reply to  gavinfdavies

Thank you. Not a scientist and when I read that this crap is found in every cell for me this means EVERY cell.

0
0
greggsy01
greggsy01
1 year ago

let’s just pay people to stay home and do nothing for months. what could possibly go wrong, they said.

62
0
soundofreason
soundofreason
1 year ago
Reply to  greggsy01

Workers will get right back in as soon as they’re allowed, of course.

  • Like school kids went straight back as soon as allowed – except huge increase in truancy
  • Like civil service and other office workers dropped the working from home malarkey
  • Assuming the workers’ businesses hadn’t gone bust
  • Scare people into complying – always wear a mask – it’s dangerous to meet people.

WTF did they expect?

43
0
Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago

When they censor the truth bad things happen. Any comment, Marianna Spring??

”The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is in charge of the Ministry of Truth, which the government of the United Kingdom established in 2019 in reaction to what they claimed was the overwhelming volume of false information and fake news flowing online.
They called this Ministry of Truth, The Trusted News Initiative (TNI).
The AP, AFP, First Draft, Google/YouTube, Twitter, Reuters, Financial Times, Meta (Facebook), European Broadcasting Union, CBC/Radio-Canada, The Hindu, Microsoft, and The Washington Post are just a few of the influential partners in the BBC’s Trusted News Initiative.
It is the only “forum” of its sort in the entire world created to accept information that has not been authorized by The Ministry of Truth in real-time.

The Ministry of Truth’s (TheTrusted News Initiative) strategy was quite effective in preventing the dissemination of accurate information that jeopardized their attempts to completely dominate the information landscape.
Experts and scientists were effectively kept in the dark, with any research or conclusions that didn’t support the government’s version of events about COVID-19 being labeled as “fake news.”
It also resulted in a culture where people were reluctant to express their opinions, where governments exercised excessive control over what people knew and believed, and where freedom of expression and independent thought were suppressed.
The Ministry only provided the public with material it deemed to be “true,” although frequently this meant withholding crucial information that may have saved lives.
Millions of lives were tragically and needlessly lost as a result of the Covid-19 injections.”

https://theleadingreport.com/2023/07/13/bbc-could-be-responsible-for-majority-of-2m-excess-deaths-in-europe-due-to-misinformation-campaign-used-to-censor-the-dangers-of-covid-vaccines/

33
0
Sforzesca
Sforzesca
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

That just reminds me, I first complained to the BBC in early April 2021 –

YOUR COMPLAINT: 

Your continual covid 19 fear propaganda 

You are supposed to be independent. Your covid 19 coverage is nothing but government and big pharma’s propaganda. You refuse or are incapable of asking their “experts” any critical questions. You refuse to give any truly independent experts opportunity to give alternative views regarding vaccine safety, quarantines, actual covid death figures, masks etc. In no small measure you have propagated the totally unwarranted climate of fear which exists.
Do your job. Rediscover the art of investigative journalism and actually THINK. Do some research – look at what proper experts have to say – John Loannidis, Bryam Bridle, Geert Vanden Bossche, Mike Yeadon, Carl Heneghan, and if you want your eyes opening re the safety of vaccines – which you promote without question- read vaccinepapers.org .
You are promoting an ideology. Your censorship would make Goebbels proud.
I used to value the BBC. Not any more.
Finally what about your virtually non existent reporting of the “lockdown protests”.
 
Needless to say I got the usual fob off.

At the time I didn’t realise the extent to which they’d already been captured.

Last edited 1 year ago by Sforzesca
20
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago

I don’t suppose any of this will feature in the “inquiry.”

Cost / benefit analysis. What’s that when it’s at home?

21
0
soundofreason
soundofreason
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

As soon as a ‘benefit’ is ‘one human life’ the discussion stops.

My mother died at age 93. She was desperate to avoid going into hospital where she thought they could keep her alive almost indefinitely. She didn’t like people ‘fussing’ over her but tried to be polite (not always successfully). I hope I’m a bit like her.

14
0
Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago

Correlation only proves causation when it supports the narrative, ergo ‘global warming’ did it, in the dining room with the lead piping. This story is very insulting to a thinking person’s intelligence. A higher than average number of people died in nursing homes, where they aren’t sat in the greenhouse but in a lounge with aircon and/or fans, out of direct sunlight, therefore the common denominator must be the excess heat. But we know that in the winter they’d blame the cold. Give me strength!

”In the second quarter of 2023, over 39,000 people died in the Netherlands, 1,900 or 5 percent more than expected for this period. In three weeks of June, there was excess mortality among people in long-term care and senior citizens. This coincided with a heatwave in the country, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported on Friday.
June 2023 was the warmest June since temperature measurements started in the Netherlands in 1901. Temperatures were over 3 degrees higher than typical. Elderly people and people with weakened systems are vulnerable to heat.

In the second quarter, about 150 more people died per week than expected, but there was only excess mortality during weeks 23, 24, and 25 – the three weeks in June when there was a heatwave in the country. Excess mortality is when the number of deaths is so much higher than expected that it exceeds the accounted-for fluctuations.
The higher-than-expected number of deaths in the second quarter can also partially be attributed to a flu epidemic in the Netherlands in April. Covid-19 is also still circulating in the country, though the number of virus particles in sewage water decreased in the second quarter. According to CBS, 319 people died of Covid-19 in February, the latest known figures.”

https://nltimes.nl/2023/07/14/heat-wave-causes-5-percent-deaths-expected-june

7
0
Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

I am not alone in my scepticism. So all these elderly people ”dying from the heat”, what exactly do the doctors put as the cause of death on the certificate? ”Heat stroke”? From sitting in a lounge in the shade, far away from any actual direct sunlight? Crazy. A heat wave = causation of death but all of those serious adverse event reports = coincidence.

https://twitter.com/BareReality/status/1679772952139649025

11
0
DS99
DS99
1 year ago

I asked a friend of mine about these absentee rates – had he noticed this in his business? He said no, there is no difference whatsoever in absentee rates in his business with about forty people. He was aware of these figures (and most are vaccinated, he assures me although he never asked them, considering it wasn’t an appropriate question to ask employees) and he put it down to them having stayed open all the way through the lockdowns, if only with a skeleton staff initially and then staff coming back as soon as they felt able. I’m not a fan of vaccines (and that’s been the case for at least twenty years) but I think it is too easy to just jump on that as a reason for this increase in absenteeism. I think there are many factors at play here including psychologically it being OKay to be off work for a sniffle (fear of contaminating the office) as mentioned by another commenter.

Last edited 1 year ago by DS99
27
0
soundofreason
soundofreason
1 year ago
Reply to  DS99

I somewhat disagree – but have an up-tick for a sensible argument.

15
-1
CaseyJones
CaseyJones
1 year ago
Reply to  DS99

Except for the pesky fact of continuing excess deaths, I would suggest malingering, quiet quitting, and hypochondria are causes of the disability increases in the UK and in the US. Are people sicker–the excess deaths would indicate so. I personally don’t know anyone with a chronic illness, new disability, adverse jab effects, or death from covid. Maybe I need to get out more….

6
0
richardw53
richardw53
1 year ago
Reply to  DS99

He’s not in the public sector!

4
0
Nearhorburian
Nearhorburian
1 year ago

Britain’s public finances crippled by 26 years of mass immigration.

27
-3
richardw53
richardw53
1 year ago

I’d love to know what the supposed skills shortages are, whether they are in the private or public sector, and where they are geographically. Maybe they are just down to vacancies in zero hours jobs that people only do short term until they find something else. Does anyone know of any statistical analysis?

5
0
Covid-1984
Covid-1984
1 year ago

Trying to remove those stupid 2m lines from our church floor. Governments have left humanity a catastrophic legacy eminating from the big Covid-19 lie. History will judge them harshly. The golden rule is NEVER believe what the government tells you.

15
0
Epi
Epi
1 year ago

Hmmm.. Elephants and rooms spring to mind.

5
0
RTSC
RTSC
1 year ago

I’m largely economically inactive by choice. (I have an arrangement (you can’t really call it a contract) with a small local company which means I work when they need an extra pair of hands and IF I want to.)

Fortunately, I have a pension, savings and a BtL which means I can afford not to be a wage slave. I’m prioritising a very nice lifestyle over working and paying tax to the moronic Government which stripped me of my Civil Liberties and Human Rights over a virus they KNEW was only dangerous for a small and easily-identified section of the population.

I didn’t cause the devestation.

14
-1
AJPotts
AJPotts
1 year ago

Lockdown served to erode the work ethic of much of the nation and embedded a dependency culture. The benefit system in the UK incentivises chronic sickness particularly. Decades of welfare statism were causing society and economy to decay gradually and Lockdown greatly accelerated the decay. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that we’re doomed.

6
-2

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