Bridget Phillipson tried to pull the plug on new free speech laws in her first act as Education Secretary just days after the general election, court documents reveal. The Telegraph has more.
High Court documents show Ms. Phillipson received a briefing from Department for Education (DfE) officials in July on how she could go about revoking new laws promoting academic freedom.
She took the university sector by surprise when she announced on July 26th that she was shelving the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, just six days before it was due to come into force.
Ms. Phillipson said at the time that she had chosen to “stop” the flagship Tory legislation before it was set to be implemented on Aug 1st “in order to consider options, including its repeal”.
However, court documents obtained by the Telegraph reveal the Education Secretary had already sought advice weeks before that on how to scrap the main elements of the free speech legislation.
In a briefing addressed to Ms. Phillipson on July 8th, the Monday after Labour swept to power, DfE officials said: “We understand you do not wish to implement the main provisions of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023.
“A decision is needed on whether to allow the commencement of the provisions of the Act that are due to come into force on Aug 1st, or to pause.”
The DfE document informed Ms Phillipson that failure to intervene over the Act would mean the legislation automatically going live at the start of August.
It said that “therefore, immediate decisions are needed to revoke these regulations following which you can consider different options relating to repeal of the Act”.
It suggests Ms. Phillipson set the wheels in motion to shelve the flagship Tory legislation just days after the General Election, in her first major act as Education Secretary.
The Telegraph understands it came after she consulted Jewish groups and other interested parties over their concerns about the legislation while still in the Opposition.
Days after she entered office, DfE officials advised Ms. Phillipson on various courses of action for scaling back the free speech legislation.
Documents show the Education Secretary was told she should “consider whether you wish to repeal the Act, in part or in full, or leave it on the statute book without the main provisions commenced”.
The Act, which received royal assent in May 2023, would have introduced a new complaints scheme for academics, students and visiting speakers concerned about free speech violations on campus.
It would have also allowed victims of ‘cancel culture’ at universities to seek compensation through a statutory tort.
Ms Phillipson’s decision to mothball the laws has received widespread backlash from academics, who argue it leaves them vulnerable to being “hounded, censured and silenced” for holding legitimate views some may deem offensive.
Sources close to the discussions told the Telegraph they were furious the Act has been painted as a “Tory hate charter” designed to stoke the culture wars.
The Education Secretary insisted the move followed concerns from Jewish groups that the Act could have created a platform for hate speech on campus.
Critics have branded the suggestion a red herring, insisting that the legislation would only have strengthened protections for free speech “within the law”.
Ms. Phillipson now faces legal action over her decision to pull the plug on the Act, after the Free Speech Union was granted permission to appeal the move.
A judicial review hearing is set to take place in the High Court on Jan 23rd.
Worth reading in full.
You can contribute to the CrowdJustice fundraiser the FSU has set up to help pay the costs of bringing the legal challenge against Ms. Phillipson here.
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A guy called Julius Streicher was hanged at Nuremberg for incitement to genocide, ie, publishing an antisemitic German newspaper (Der Stürmer) which is all he was ever personally responsible for. So, why on earth do you keep claiming there was something like free speech? There ain’t and that Philipps tried to get Jewish organisations onboard just demonstrates that she understood how to get rid of supposedly free speech she really doesn’t like.
You want to censor and kill people who don’t obey. Guess what? She wants that as well. Same difference. Petty squabbles about who is or isn’t to be hanged for speaking freely don’t change the quality of the discussion.
BTW: Wasn’t there also an Irish-born American who got executed by the British state for speaking English?
Is it the rôle of Civil Servants to brief Ministers on how to circumvent or evade legislation?
The “Hate Speech” Strawman….As ever, who gets to decide what is hate speech.
Who? Those running The State, its apparatchiks, cronies and useful idiots.
Bridget Phillipson Classroom Dictator
Surprisingly I don’t believe this story.
Are we really expected to accept that just after winning the election Phillipson decided to put a complete stop to legislation that was scheduled to go live within a couple of weeks? Bollox. And the Civil service seems to have had a remarkably well prepared response to her whingeing. I’m not buying it. So, Labour knew they had the election in the bag before it was run or Phillipson thought she’d wing it before she even had her feet under her desk.
This story has a distinct whiff of jackanory attached to it.
Everyone knew that Labour had the election in the bag before it was run. Weren’t you paying attention?
‘The DfE document informed Ms Phillipson that failure to intervene over the Act would mean the legislation automatically going live at the start of August…’
Extraordinary to reflect that civil servants advised a Minister to ‘intervene’ to stop legislation that had been passed by Parliament. Quite obviously, that is a power reserved to the House of Commons, and presumably the FSU argument will be based on that fact.
But I expect the Court to find that, because of the ECHR, Parliament was ulta vires in the first place, and had no power to pass the legislation.
We shouldn’t joke about such possibilities.
This case will show how politicised the High Court has become. I think we all suspect but just how far has it gone.
Free speech and the woke mind virus cannot both co-habit Clown World because, as we’ve seen with many examples now, serious ructions do occur as a result, so one of them must die otherwise it’s just the never-ending battle. Consequently we keep hearing of more and more pathetic garbage and the messing about with our literature, as well as our language, such as this latest Woketard offering, which defies common sense and is basically censorship on steroids;
”Saying a patient has “blacked out” when they have fainted is racist, pharmacists have been warned.
Chemist workers have been banned from using the traditional phrase for briefly losing consciousness in case it causes offence.
Other words and phrases with “racial undertones” on a barred list drawn up by union bosses – in what horrified critics branded “virtue signalling” – include black sheep, black market and “blackmail”.
The – for want of a better phrase – “blacklist” was compiled by Nav Bhogal, a member of the Pharmacists’ Defence Association’s BAME (Black, Asian, and minority ethnic) network.
Titled “Addressing racial undertones in the language of pharmacy”, Mr Bhogal said that the words have become “embedded in our professional vocabulary”.
He claims the words and… Read more »
Nav Bhogal wants shipping back to his ancestral home.
#w#t.
It’s a Captain Obvious cameo, but it always amazes me why people who demonstrably hate white people and have no interest in respecting/tolerating our culture, insist on moving where the white folk live. Perplexing.🧐 Just stay the feck away then!🤷♀️
It’d be like me moving to Dubai and making a formal complaint to the municipality about all the women walking around looking like mobile tents and how that offends my liberal Western female sensibilities, because ‘Women’s Rights’. You move to a place that has a completely different culture and you accept that culture and respect the contrasting laws and customs. It’s just the sheer arrogance of it. Of course, I don’t think many places, even those such as the UAE, which are a bit more relaxed and tolerant of Westerners and other religions, would suffer the “suicidal empathy” and outright treachery from its own leaders and citizens that we’re experiencing here in most of Europe.
You nailed it Mogs. 😉
She did 👍
Yes but it’s all being organised & constructed – this downfall of western civilisation – by our own European ilk who are using every trick in the book which includes these useful ( to them ) idiots, foreign or otherwise to help carry out their plans !!
I was hoping to dream of a white Christmas next year. I know it’s not going to happen. But I fear even hoping it may get me into trouble.
😀😀😀