A recent survey has found that a substantial number of teenagers do not want to share their political opinions, fearing they will lose friends or be cancelled. They are afraid to voice their opinions on certain political issues in school as they’re worried about being criticised by their classmates. Nearly a quarter of schoolchildren between the ages of 10 and 17, out of 4,000 surveyed, said they have been asked to stop voicing their political views at school. Whatever happened to freedom of expression?
The survey was carried out by the Economist Educational Foundation which found that 22% of 15 to 17 year-olds had stopped sharing their political opinions because they were worried about criticism, along with 20% of 10 to 14 year-olds. The survey also found students feel unprepared and have limited political knowledge heading into the next General Election, prompting 44% of 15 to 17 year-olds to say they don’t feel ready to vote in the next election.
Political debate and diversity of opinion is a strength in a democratic society. It drives innovation, improves decision-making and fosters resilience. Diverse perspectives force people out of complacency and into more thoughtful evaluations of the problems facing us. So why are many schoolchildren inhibited about expressing themselves?
One reason for this could be a lack of political education. Research indicates a significant lack of political education in UK schools. While citizenship is a mandatory subject, one in five secondary schools in England teach no political literacy. This leads to schoolchildren feeling less confident in voicing their own opinions
There is also evidence that those with Right-wing views are more inhibited about expressing them than those with Left-wing views. While this recent survey focuses on the issue of self-censorship across the political spectrum, there is clear evidence that Right-of-centre students are more likely to report feeling unable to speak freely. The Times published a survey that found students who support parties such as Reform UK are socially isolated at university and face “attacks” and “harassment” from their more Left-leaning peers. A 2022 survey also found that 68% of Conservative-supporting students are reluctant to ‘come out’ at university, up from 59% in 2019.
Moreover, Reform UK speakers and elected representatives have recently faced a good deal of hostility at universities: a student society at Bangor University recently banned a Reform UK MP from speaking, while 35% of students in another recent survey supported banning Reform UK from campus.
Children have also been banned from participating in school events because of their supposedly unacceptable views. In 2025, a 12 year-old pupil, Courtney Wright, was sent home from Bilton School in Warwickshire after wearing a Union Jack dress for ‘culture day’. The school, which aimed to celebrate diversity, deemed the attire inappropriate and told her to go home and change, causing widespread outcry.
As a 17 year-old, I have first-hand experiences of this. Thankfully, I haven’t lost friends over my beliefs. But rumours spread – whispers that I’m ‘far-Right’ or ‘bigoted’, distortions of what I’ve actually said. The worst part isn’t the criticism – it’s the misrepresentation. I’m not some radical. I have faced labels such as ‘fascist’ (although, if you asked them to define what this actually meant, you’d be met with blank stares) and ‘racist’ just because I proudly have more Right-leaning views. Groups also started to exclude and ignore me as if I’m some convicted prisoner, making me feel excluded from the ‘community’ just for having Right-of-centre political views.
It seems that this is not confined to isolated individuals like me anymore: it’s becoming a national issue – and it’s not just those with Right-wing views. Yes, the problem is more acute for Right-leaning teenagers, but political oppression is becoming more widespread in the UK. Free speech matters. Without it, we won’t just stop debating important issues – we’re less likely to arrive at the truth about those issues, or at least a settled consensus. If you can’t question things in school, where can you?
Jack Watson is a 17 year-old student in Year 12 at Wyke College, Hull. You can read his Substack about following Hull City FC here. Follow him on X here.
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You’re very brave, Jack, and keep up the good work as it helps other young people to feel more confident in expressing their views. The problem with adding politics to the curriculum is that teachers themselves are often ignorant and bigoted, and, as we have seen over various recent issues, very left-wing. As an example, I offer the case of an 11 year old child I know. He said something in class that the (mixed race) teacher said would offend some people. His punishment was to be sent outside to sit in the rain for half an hour, bad enough in itself. But what did he say? ‘Mamma Mia’. No, me neither.
Well said Jack another good piece and don’t let the b***ers get you down!
Jack, keep em coming. You remind me so much of my teenage self. Just better. I wish I had started writing my ideas as early as you have, and so publicly.
Thirty years ago, when I was fourteen, my very annoying geography teacher, Mr Wilson, was berating us about nasty CFCs and TheHoleInTheOzoneLayer™.
Over the months of his “tuition”, he had grown wary of my awkward questions, and would test my resolve by leaving many minutes between my raising my arm and his allowing me to speak. But wait patiently I would. Very stubborn, you see.
Finally, he would point at me. “Yes. Marcus.”
“Thank you, Sir. I was wondering, when did the hole in the ozone layer first appear?”
The bell rang that time, and he never had chance to answer. Poor fellow. I wonder if he knows the hole is still there, practically unchanged in size, shape and location since the day we first noticed it?
Lovely story!
It bears repeating here that this hole in the ozone layer was what was originally said to cause catastrophical global warming. Nowdays, just like Oceania was always at war with Eurasia, it was always to blame on CO₂ which everybody already knew in the 1950s, or at least, everybody working at the exec level of large oil companies.
Excellent article by Jack Watson. I vaguely recall reading years ago that one of the standard Communist control methods was to brainwash people into censoring each other, because the state did not have the ability to censor millions of patriots.
So they relied heavily on secret “informers” to denounce their friends and neighbours, and even their own parents, FOR THEIR PATRIOTIC CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL BELIEFS, even to the point of making the children watch the public execution of the parents they had secretly denounced.
Just like the JESUIT CATHOLIC INQUISITION, burning Christians alive at the stake for disagreeing with the Vatican.
Display of ignorance and Cathophobia. If you knew anything you might know that the CI targeted Jew and Muslim conversos, the lunatics called Cathars and other groups attacking the Catholic state, the vast majority were not Christian. Further, to help with your education, the CI did not kill anyone. 3000 were handed over to the state. By contrast 3000 Black Christians every 8 months on average are murdered by Black Muslims in Nigeria. Protestants burnt and murdered some 10,000 women, many Catholic and practicing naturopathy during the horse shyte called ‘The Enlightenment’.
Yours is a display of willful ignorance and Protestantophobia, in addition to your ridiculous and bloated accusation that 10,000 witches were burnt by Protestants! All accusations of witchcraft were made in order to seize the property of the accused, 1/3rd of which went to the Accuser, 1/3rd to the Church, and 1/3rd to the State.
ONLY ONE CATHOLIC was ever burnt at the stake for being Catholic, and that was somewhere in Eastern Europe, because Protestants considered that burning people alive was too cruel and inhuman a punishment, which no one would ever even do to an animal. One fanatical Catholic “saint” even burnt a Christian head-first on a stake, which horrified the people so much that they grabbed their pitchforks and ran the “saint” out of town.
The Inquisition WAS the state, so don’t bother using the same excuse the Mass Murderer Calvin (real name “Cauvin” = “Cohen”) used when he had 56 devout Christians tortured and burnt alive for disagreeing with him, including about 20 Protestant women he accused of causing a plague. Apologists for Calvin, who actually murdered more Christians during his five-year Reign of Terror in Geneva than the Inquisition itself did during that period, like… Read more »
Furthermore, a recent video explains how Pope Leo and Vatican II are leading the Globalist plot to unite the world under “Chrislam”, merging Catholics with Muslims, using the Algerian Muslim veneration of “LALLA MERYEM” = “Our Lady of Africa” = “The Black Madonna”, as a kind of Interfaith Superglue.
JAY DYER: Dune 3 Film Predicts World Events On Islam, The Pope, & The New World Order!
Since it is not Christians, but Catholics being merged with Islam, it is not “Chrislam” but “Marylam” being concocted.
Interesting that “The Black Madonna” worshipped by Muslims (and Romanians as “Black Sarah”) is actually KaliAllah the Moon Spider Goddess of Death, worshipped by millions of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Pagan Wiccan Voodoo Idiots and Assorted Cannibals around the world.
Here she is in her Tibetan Buddhist form of Palden Llamo Kalideva, getting some exercise by riding a white horse saddled with the skin of her own son … across a lake of blood … in her spare time from choosing the next Dalai Lama.
So the bloody history of the Albigensian Crusade and the Inquisition, in the Cathar country where I live, is all lies?
Excellent point!
I think it was already there, at least back in the 1970s, when the likes of Heath, Callaghan and others were at large. No shortage of industrial action then that disrupted the school I attended. It mostly relied on coal at that time, and of course there were power shortages for the same reason for a while.
Most of the electricity generation then was from coal, supplemented by nuclear and a tiny number of hydro sites in Scotland. There was an oil fired one as well (in Pembroke), but that fell foul of the difficulties in the Suez canal and the rising oil prices.
Rather childish article with dodgy stats full of percentages without absolute numbers, sample sizes, type of population and control groups. And worse, asking leading questions missing the only one that really matters: “Tell us boys and girls, are you interested in politics?” Teenagers have now learnt from the seniors in the family that UK politics is an unfunny joke where in “democratic” elections 21% decide the fate of the nation and that the UniParty rules OK regardless (there are, though, some amusing bits like “A 2022 survey also found that 68% of Conservative-supporting students are reluctant to ‘come out’ at university, up from 59% in 2019.” without asking the killer question: How many out of 100 students support Conservatives?)
It’s a bit silly — I’m intentionally avoiding childish here — to criticize the author of the article for reporting on surveys conducted by third parties independent of him and doing this in exactly the same way as such reporting is usually done, namely, restricted to the findings.
I think childish is unfair. He’s 17 and living through this warped educational system. His observations about being excluded by the ‘right-on’ are of interest to me at least.
hear hear.
Curio, a paid idiot Clownio maybeio.
Give the boy a break, he writes well and should be encouraged to air his views however much you disagree with them. Whilst you are obviously entitled to your. views your opinion/criticisms here smack a bit of the bully boy.
Pluralism is an important concept here: A multitude of viewpoints and policy proposal for tackling any particular issue ought to exist because inherent human limitations mean that we could always all be completely wrong about anything and it’s pretty much guaranteed that we will always all be partially wrong about everything.
Devising a sensible solution to any problem usually requires experimenting with different approaches to determine what works and what doesn’t and this is impossible if different approaches don’t exist to begin with.
”..distortions of what I’ve actually said. The worst part isn’t the criticism – it’s the misrepresentation.”
Misrepresenting somebody who you don’t agree with seems to be common, especially in the online sphere. Probably because in most instances people are emboldened by the fact they’re anonymous and are therefore not held to account for their comments, much in the same way as trolling behaviour. It’s usually seen when somebody has nothing left in the tank and nothing to offer in the way of reasoned counter-argument. The strawmen usually aren’t far behind.
I think misrepresenting somebody is a tactic used by those who are coming from a place of deep cognitive bias and who discard or ignore any evidence which doesn’t support the narrative that they’re wedded to and over-invested in. They have such a low tolerance level for those who have opposing views and see them as a threat that they must discredit them at whatever cost, hence the usual tactics must be deployed. E.g: words ( slurs such as ‘fascist’ ) become hijacked and bastardized, and their dictionary definition no longer applies. These delusional people fabricate their own version of reality because actual reality doesn’t serve them.
Such people will… Read more »
Yes. Well, in the name of combatting those negative forces which anonymity often seems to encourage, my name is Joseph Vorlicky, and I approve of your message!