Freedom of Speech

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Friday 10th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Singh of Wimbledon, has, through using some very challenging and hard-hitting ideas, just illustrated the value of free speech, because we learned something. I was a bit offended, I agreed with some of it—but it had my attention, and that is what it is all about.

Like other noble Lords, I commend the most reverend Primate for holding this debate, because many of us who raise concerns about attacks on free speech have sometimes been accused, including recently, of confecting the problem in order to stir up culture wars or even to cover up our own bigotry. In a bestselling book in the United States, the author Gavan Titley states that freedom of speech

“has been adopted as a primary mechanism for validating and re-animating racist ideas.”

In other words, even arguing for free speech has been turned into a toxic idea.

This hints at one contemporary challenge. Although everyone says they believe in free speech, it is often caveated. How often do I hear, “I believe in free speech, but …”? Often, after the “but” people will say “not for hate speech”, or “not for bigotry”. I appeal to noble Lords: when you hear the “but” after “free speech”, watch out for censorship. I also appeal that we do not take the demonising labels of hate and bigot at face value. Hate is a nebulous concept that even in hate-crime legislation is based on perception rather than objective criteria.

In this way, the subjective label of “hate” can be used to delegitimise a wide range of opinions and can be used cynically to discredit political opponents. For example, LGB Alliance, the fastest-growing campaigning charity for the rights of lesbians, bisexual people and gay men, has been maliciously and erroneously dubbed a hate group on a par with far-right extremists. Or what about the police arresting a number of street preachers for allegedly homophobic hate speech, when what they were actually doing was—wait for it—quoting the Bible? They would have a field day in here. We should note that religious freedom, the bedrock of a secular society, is very much at risk under the auspices of hate speech. Nottingham University recently initially blocked the appointment of a Catholic chaplain for explaining his—well—Catholic views on social media, which were depicted as hate-fuelled. Hate speech, I would say, is often the free speech of those views that we hate.

More generally, we have seen the ratcheting up of sensationalised labels to the level of hate in order to silence opinions which are deemed beyond the pale. For example, everyday sexism, however boorish, is now routinely exaggerated and described as misogyny or hatred of women, and we promiscuously stigmatise ever-growing numbers of people as fascists, Nazis, extremists or fundamentalists. I did a study post 2016 of the various variations of “Brexity, knuckle-dragging gammon”—I was often included in them—and there were thousands of versions of that.

While some noble Lords here suggest that we need to curtail free speech, perhaps to protect marginalised groups, in the name of social justice—although I worry that is a little condescending—many of the least powerful in society are excluded from debate by being labelled as beyond the pale by new powerbrokers, especially around identity politics, who basically describe people as not being worth debating with by using stigmatising labels such as “knuckle-dragging gammon”.

I am also worried when sceptics who wish to query political or scientific orthodoxies are similarly marginalised. In 2019, the Guardian updated its style guide, instructing that climate sceptics should be referred to as “climate change deniers”. The same rhetorical strategy was applied to those sceptical of some lockdown restrictions or who asked questions about the science, who have been labelled “Covid deniers”. This gross exploitation of the legacy of the Holocaust as a way of demeaning individuals and views as so morally reprehensible that they can be banned without qualm is dangerous.

Of course, some people do have repellent and bigoted ideas, and some, even if only a few, are indeed Holocaust deniers. I do not want to duck out of the hard argument. One of the most tricky issues if, like me, you adhere to the principle of free speech is having to defend the indefensible. This is made more difficult by the fashion for falsely conflating the defence of the free speech rights of bigots with endorsing those views. Indeed, this form of guilt by association is used to get people cancelled. For me, it is important not to concede the principle of free speech, which is so foundational to democracy that we should not become squeamish about defending the right of a racist to spout garbage. I think we should answer it with more speech and—yes—sunshine. Also, as Thomas Paine explained centuries ago:

“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”


Another contemporary challenge is that we live in a period in which we have institutionalised the idea that safety trumps liberty, brought so viscerally alive when we consider the ease with which civil liberties were suspended and online censorship officially endorsed under the heading of “misinformation” to keep us safe during the Covid virus. On this, I disagree with the most reverend Primate because I think that free speech is increasingly seen as too dangerous to go unchecked by endless regulations. JS Mill’s harm principle has now expanded in our therapeutic times.

The online safety Bill, which I think is a frightening legislative threat to free speech—but I will wait for Second Reading—proposes censoring lawful but harmful speech if it is deemed to cause harm, even psychological harm. When University of Sussex activists targeted Professor Kathleen Stock, the posters read “Kathleen Stock makes trans students unsafe”—as though a fine, reasoned, philosophical exploration of the material reality of biological sex was the equivalent of a gun or a knife. At the University of Exeter, 100,000 people have signed a petition opposing the very existence of the Students for Life society because it is argued that the pro-life group

“threatens the safety and well-being of women”.

Instead of challenging the society to a debate that they then win, my side, the feminists who are pro-choice, have the instinct to retreat, act as victims and call for a ban.

Another contemporary challenge is cancel culture, and this goes way beyond no-platforming, as noble Lords have noted today. It is a tactic of public shaming and humiliation, often targeting individual employers and demanding that people are disciplined. On the advice, one of the problems is that too many in power are cowardly in the face of cancel culture. I call for courage in facing down the cancelers.