I have wanted to write for the Daily Sceptic for a long time. It should be a straightforward ambition to fulfil. I have opinions, I support free speech and scepticism, and here is a publication built for exactly that. Instead, my first contribution arrives unsigned. I think the reason why is, in itself, the article.
Ann Widdecombe’s murder has reopened a question that surfaces from time to time: should politicians with ‘unfashionable’ views get extra protection? The investigation continues, so I won’t comment on that, but the fact that the question is even being asked in response to a 78 year-old woman being killed in her own home tells you something regardless of how the investigation concludes. We have been here before. Jo Cox in 2016. David Amess in 2021. A pattern is forming, whatever the final facts of this particular case turn out to be.
The debate this triggers is usually framed narrowly: what security do MPs need? I want to push it wider: what if politicians are not actually the group most exposed? They have protection officers, party machinery and a public profile that makes an attack on them a national story. I have none of that. Neither does anyone else who simply has an opinion and a job to protect.
I recently listened to Professor David Betz of King’s College London’s Department of War Studies, who argued that Britain may be entering a period of increasing internal conflict in which political violence becomes more likely. Whether or not one accepts his analysis, it’s difficult to ignore the growing sense that our public discourse has become more hostile and less forgiving. If expressing political disagreement increasingly carries the risk of intimidation or worse, the answer cannot simply be to provide more security for an ever-expanding list of public figures. That treats the symptom rather than the disease.
The view from nowhere and a nobody in particular
I consider myself an ordinary person. Thirty-plus years ago I would have considered myself slightly Left-leaning. I liked to think of myself as one of the good guys. But somewhere in the last three decades the Overton window slid sideways, and views I’ve quietly held throughout – that mass immigration, legal and illegal, hasn’t obviously benefited the culture I grew up in, that free speech should mean everyone’s speech, including the people I disagree with – are now filed under ‘Right-wing’.
I don’t think I’m unusual. Look at the Brexit vote, which for many people was as much about sovereignty and control over immigration as it was about Brussels. Look at any poll on migration levels. There is a large, ordinary, non-extreme constituency that holds views broadly like mine. And a good number of them, I suspect, keep quiet for the same reason I’m staying anonymous here: weighing up whether speaking out is worth the risk. Silence can easily be mistaken for consensus, and I suspect that’s exactly what’s happening here.
Which raises a question I’ve had to sit with while writing this: am I a coward? Publishing anonymously, after all, is a way of having the argument without paying for it. But I don’t think cowardice is really what’s on display here. A coward stays silent. What I’m doing is closer to something else entirely: deciding that saying this at all matters more than saying it under my own name, while still not being willing to bet my livelihood on it. If that’s cowardice, then I suspect it’s shared by a very large, very quiet number of people who hold perfectly mainstream opinions and have simply done the same calculations that I have. That, in itself, might be the more troubling finding than anything else in this piece.
Fear arrives before the crackdown
This is the part I think gets missed in the security debate. We talk about authoritarianism as something that happens to you: a knock on the door, a lost job, a police caution for a tweet. But before any of that, there’s the version that happens inside your own head. You draft the post and delete it. You bite your tongue at the dinner table. You calculate what a client, a neighbour, or a local WhatsApp group might do with an honest opinion, and you decide it isn’t worth finding out.
That calculation isn’t paranoid. The variables feeding it are laid out in article after article in the Daily Sceptic. Prevent’s own material cites “cultural nationalism”, defined as the belief that Western culture is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by specific ethnic and cultural groups, as a sub-category of extreme Right-wing ideology. Two-tier policing is underpinned by the College of Policing and National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) Anti-Racism Commitment, which states that policing should not be “colour blind”, a principle many officers and members of the public have read as licence to treat people differently according to race. It is perhaps no coincidence that public trust in these institutions has been falling sharply. Gallup found that Britons’ confidence in the courts dropped 12 points in a single year to 57%, while confidence in local police fell 11 points to 64%, the largest year-on-year declines on record for either measure. When the referee looks like it’s picking sides, people stop trusting the game.
Campaigners have logged tens of thousands of ‘non-crime hate incidents’ a year, the great majority of them originating from something someone posted online. And after events like the Southport riots, an entire category of people were branded ‘far-Right thugs’ as a matter of editorial habit. None of this needs to end in a prosecution for it to work. Its function is to make you flinch before you speak, not after. And it’s working: a YouGov poll found that 57% of Britons admit to sometimes holding back their views for fear of a negative reaction, and research published earlier this year found the same pattern setting in even among teenagers, with around one in five saying they hide their political opinions at school to avoid being ‘cancelled’. Self-censorship of this kind isn’t a fringe habit. It’s now closer to a majority experience.
Nothing dramatic has happened to me. Nobody has knocked on my door. I have not been arrested, cautioned or sacked. I have simply chosen, before any of that could happen, to leave my name off this piece. That is precisely the point. Fear doesn’t need to become reality to change behaviour. The anticipation of it is enough.
That’s the self-censorship no one puts a number on, and I think it’s doing more to shrink public debate than any single policy or piece of legislation. Its success isn’t measured by how many people it punishes, but by how many quietly change their behaviour hoping never to be punished at all.
What the Free Speech Union can’t do
I say this as a member and supporter, not a critic: the Free Speech Union does something genuinely valuable. It represents people who get victimised for exercising their right to free speech, such as those facing job losses, disciplinary action or no-platforming for holding a lawful opinion. It lobbies against bad policy before it’s enacted or written into law. Both of those are real, useful functions.
But none of it reaches the moment someone decides to act with their fists rather than a complaint form. If an opinion gets you followed home, or attacked in the street, the Free Speech Union cannot stand between you and that. Nothing currently can, if you’re not a high profile figure with a protection detail. I don’t say that to be alarmist. I say it because it’s the honest answer to ‘What happens if this goes further?’, and I don’t think we’ve collectively worked out what we do about it.
It’s worth adding: this isn’t only a problem for people like me. Journalists and broadcasters who’ve been pushed out of mainstream outlets over their views have, in plenty of cases, faced worse, genuine, sustained threats, and some have built independent platforms only because staying inside the mainstream tent stopped being an option. I don’t want to suggest their situation is easy. But for many at least, it is a chosen fight, with an audience and often an income attached to it. Mine isn’t. I have a job, clients and neighbours, and none of them signed up for my opinions to become their problem.
So, anonymously
Which brings me back to where I started. I am not a public figure. I have no security detail, no platform to defend and no appetite for becoming a story. What I have is an opinion that used to be unremarkable and now apparently isn’t, and a reasonable fear that saying so under my own name could cost me clients, friction with neighbours or worse. So I’m saying it without my name attached, in a publication built specifically to defend my right to say it with my name attached.
If that strikes you as a contradiction, it should. I think it’s the clearest evidence I can offer that something in this country’s relationship with free expression isn’t working: not a theory about it, but a person quietly acting on the fear of it, in real time, in this very article.
The author is what used to be known as a ‘regular bloke’ living in Britain who has asked not to be named for reasons cited above.
Discussion
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I am sorry to say that in my view the moment we start down this path we are already accepting the shackles. Membership of the FSU may already qualify one as a dissident, and your name is already quite likely on some grubby list. Long live dissident voices!!
Yes, the chill factor deepens despite optiimistic talk of Net Zero being weakened and trans lunatics being put back into their asylum etc. We live in a state of mild but worsening fear, at least normal people do who don’t believe the Left and its vast media power. We are moving to the Soviet domination of people’s minds. Philby, that evil nihilistic traitor, was shocked at the fear instilled into society: “KGB Colonel Mikhail Lyubimov—who became one of Philby’s closest intelligence contacts and friends in Russia—noted that Philby often observed the pervasive paranoia among the populace, remarking that they were “afraid of everything”. Furthermore, Philby’s Russian widow, Rufina Pukhova, detailed his profound, tearful heartbreak over the poverty and struggles of the Soviet elderly, stating: “He saw people suffering too much. He said, ‘Why do old people live so badly here? After all, they won the war.’
Why is the Conservative Party, on whose watch all this has developed, so casual and indifferent to this worsening loss of free speech, why don’t they thank Reform for preserving the actural conservative tradition and seek to make friends with them to avoid the sovietisation of our formerly democratic society? This is a crisis, not a moment for jolly… Read more »
The difficulty is that most normal people can accept that not everyone will agree with them and it used to be the case that you could have heated arguments and remain cordial. Now sadly the most vociferous especially on the left are too emotional for debate to be possible without wounding insults, so people keep quiet or avoid touchy subjects for family unity or
to retain friendships.
Debate needs to be taught properly. Practise arguing against your personal opinion, ‘red team’ questions. If you never learn how to do it everything becomes a echo chamber for the fashionable view. We saw it during Covid over lockdowns and vaccinations when many just kept silent despite their misgivings.
Thank goodness for Sceptics.
Yes, the “be kind” brigade just don’t have the arguments and don’t feel they need to when they gang up and bully the opposing view, whilst being the victim
Except the very same behaviour is evident on here, it’s just coming from the Right instead. People kid themselves they’re pro free speech and everything ticks along nicely just so long as everybody is singing from the same hymn sheet and toeing the line, but as soon as somebody decides to present dissenting views and opinions which aren’t shared by the many, the pitchforks come out and people show their true colours, as I’ve described above.
There’s many who clearly love the idea of being able to say what they want but don’t take kindly to being challenged on their viewpoints by those who disagree with them and are unable to effectively debate them, hence: ‘free speech frauds’.
Their idea of free speech doesn’t extend to those who don’t agree with them or who don’t submit quietly to their worldview, instead standing their ground and putting forth reasoned counterarguments. Then there’s the people who just stay silent, lurking in the shadows, turning a blind eye and seldom contributing, other than maybe clicking a thumb. They can hardly be called genuine free speech proponents either, can they, if they’re effectively self-censoring, because god forbid they should say anything controversial which doesn’t… Read more »
Not sure where you are going here – do you feel people being able to down tick a post makes them anti free speech? Surely they are exercising their free speech right by doing just that?
Perhaps they just don’t want to get into an argument that has no end or a right or wrong answer?
People choosing not to respond is up to them in my opinion
In what realm is choosing to click a thumb – in lieu of bothering to cobble a simple comment together by way of response – ”exercising their free speech right”? You’re demonstrably opting out of doing just that, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a platform dedicated ( theoretically ) to freedom of speech in the first place. People don’t comment in order to be judged, gain approval or provide entertainment. Or at least no normal people do.
I think you make a fair point.
I agree with much of your commentary. Speaking out about your beliefs, should not get you thrown in prison. You may lose acquaintances, strain relationships, but we all know the outcomes of speaking out. Bottom line, free speech is a human right.
Oh, and to add: the most pernicious censorship method at work in western culture is the imposition by other means of a blasphemy law, specifically for Islamic sensibilities.
Bombs, beheadings, stabbings, baying mobs, and state appeasement all take their toll on an over connected world
I can’t even voice an opinion to my own children: 2 work within academia and the others work for a UN backed charity — would you believe – a Wind Farm company. Their livelihoods depend on keeping these false woke narratives alive. Whenever I speak my opinion I am treated as though my age has fuddled my brain…”Ah bless…she’s confused” . So i have to filter what I say….
It’s a shame your sentiments can’t be more widely read.
Very few people use their actual name to post, I do choose to here and elsewhere, but I have two distinct advantages:
I am not on social media and never have been – tedious time thief
I am retired and have a private pension to sustain me so will never be dragged into HR for some “re-education” or to be fired.
In fact, one of the reasons I chose to retire from a technical management role was because I could see this veil of fear being dragged over the workplace through DEI training programs, which were mandatory. My view was they were completely irrelevant to the business success and that would be my inevitable downfall.
I am sure you feel better in some small way that you have found likeminded people
“Tedious time thieves” is exactly my view too of smart phones and social media.
In answer to your question, am I a coward? the answer is yes.
Blathering on while not being prepared to stand and be counted increases the risk for everyone who is prepared to stand up for what they believe.
I use my real name here and everywhere else that I post. Everyone else at the Daily Sceptic uses their real name. The more people do that, the less the risk for everyone else.
I have a German friend who was brought up in East Germany before the country was unified.
She was brought up knowing that you NEVER voiced an opinion to anyone which could be interpreted as even vaguely critical of the Communist regime or other “dangerous opinions” for fear of the repercussions.
And that even included members of your wider family, because you never knew which one of them might be a Stasi informer.
That’s where we’re headed.
The word is murdered
Anonymity protects us from local violence and from disagreement with families and friends. But our identity will be known to the state goons who can hack websites. But if they decided to knock us off, they would face questions and so we face a lessened threat. It’s still a good idea to vary routes a d habits and carry a big knobbly walking stick.
‘Free speech frauds’ are very common and it’s easy to distinguish them from genuine free speech proponents by observing their behaviour and how they react to people who hold opposing views. For example: a free speech proponent would not react with hostility or intolerance, but instead would welcome viewpoint diversity and be willing to enter into civilized debate or exchange, they would not take being challenged on their stance or contradicted with evidence/a counterargument as a personal attack nor would they look at such reciprocal dialogue as a battle that must be won. Such behaviour is purely ego-driven.
They certainly wouldn’t resort to ad hominem, aggressive behaviour and insults, and free speech proponents wouldn’t dream of embarking on a hate campaign – involving smears and lies – by becoming obsessed with the individual who they’ve taken a personal dislike to, all because they can’t handle the fact people exist who have differing opinions to them and aren’t afraid to share them, because we neither self-censor nor do we conform. More on the subject here;
”Freedom of speech is not, in itself, a theory of truth, a set of principles, a concept of morality or a code of manners. It cannot… Read more »
Excellent article by an author who has every right to choose anonymity, just as many authors in previous centuries chose to publish anonymously using pseudonyms. It is the Extremists, whether Communist, religious, or just people with fragile egos, who like to hunt down critics and dissenters by demanding that they use their real names, and shrieking that they are “cowards” for using pseudonyms.
As the great American Patriot Charlotte Iserbyt discovered, the motto of Communist Subversives is “TARGET THE RESISTERS!”
I was not fully convinced by Zia’s policy proposal to give security to all MPs but I do think any MP, and especially a high profile one, who receives threats or has been attacked, should get support. Maybe a lot of support.
The reason I do not favour a 100% service is it would insulate them all from what the rest of us have to face. For the same reason I have objected to earlier proposals for solving the MP expenses issue by putting them all up in centrally operated hotels.
I also think MPs should only have limited first class rail tickets do they have to slum it in standard class from time to time.
The effect of state and left wing threats has certainly silenced discussion. It has also emboldened otherwise respectable left of centre voters to gratuitously insult Reform, Farage, and anyone associated with them.
But that is surely all part of the plan by the political class. Demonise their opponents to protect their collective position.
The author is correct – normal views are now Far Right as the cancer of the Far Left has infected virtually every branch of Western society. And as the disease has spread, the Far Left has become more and more unpleasant – unable to accept that all their ideas make everything worse, especially for the ‘working class’ they pretend to support. As they cannot be reasoned with you can see why many see an ideological civil war as the only solution.
I think there’s a good case to be made that it’s, at least to a large degree, almost the other way round. That we have always policed our speech around controversial matters – in particular politics – as most people prefer polite, agreeable, exchanges, rather than impolite, disagreeable, exchanges. To be sociable we have to socialise according to the norms of the society we find ourselves in, and that used to include showing respect for opposing opinions. What seems to have happened is the right have continued in that tradition and the left have not. They have shifted the societal norms (mainly through the channels of social media) so that left-wing opinion is to be shouted from the rooftops, whilst right-wing opinion must be closed down immediately and treated with utter disdain. The more aggressively they shout, the more the right has withdrawn. So I agree with the analysis of where we are now, but I think it was born from the left changing the rules of polite discourse. A trivial point I suppose, but one worth highlighting.
Not a trivial point at all. The “You can’t say that!” brigade have been gaining sway for a long time now.
I was going to comment same – the choosing to avoid politics, religion etc in conversation goes way back in my experience. The right choosing to withdraw is where I see the problem – it’s one reason I respected Ann Widdacombe – she believed in what she said and was willing to openly debate with others of differing opinions…
Ann’s views were not unfashionable with me and many other people I know.
RIP Ann
21 hammer blows. 540 mile round trip.
Early reports suggested she died after a fall. Certainly not political, oh no!
Words fail.
You’re in good company here as almost all comments will be made anonymously. Guilty as charged.
My identity would be easy to find out. And I don’t care!
I stood as a Rdform candidate in the locals and for the first time ever as a candidate I did not have my home address on the ballot. It was the Reform policy to protect me but in many elections over 2 decades I have used my own address. Similarly at Companies House I chose not to hide.
It would take the regime nanoseconds to establish any identities here and it would be naive to believe otherwise. The only time I am circumspect about things is when it could cause collateral damage to others. I think people living through National Socialism felt like that. Shame on bullies everywhere!
That’s the exact opposite of “good company”.
“Prevent’s own material cites “cultural nationalism”, defined as the belief that Western culture is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by specific ethnic and cultural groups, as a sub-category of extreme Right-wing ideology.”
In that case I am a believer in extreme right-wing ideology.
Yes, because that is exactly what is happening. I too would be on Prevent’s radar.
I don’t believe that Western culture is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by specific ethnic and cultural groups.
I believe it has already been wrecked by it and the damage it has done is probably irreversible.
I guess that makes me Faaah Rite.