We Fight On!

Last week, the new Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson issued a written statement to the House of Commons saying she intended to ‘pause’ the Freedom of Speech Act. The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 was the one tangible thing the Conservatives did to defend free speech in the past 14 years. Indeed, it was thanks to the lobbying efforts of the Free Speech Union that this legislation found itself on to the statute books. It would have imposed a new legal duty on English universities to uphold and promote freedom of speech on campus, and it created a couple of enforcement mechanisms, such as a new statutory tort, to make sure universities didn’t ignore that duty. At the Free Speech Union, we’ve been taking advice on a range of legal options, and without wishing to tip our hand, it’s safe to say Bridget Phillipson will be hearing from us shortly. The bottom line is we intend to fight this wanton act of vandalism with all we’ve got. If you’re not already a member of the FSU, and would like to join the fight, do please join. Meanwhile, in the world of the judiciary, a new edition of the Equal Treatment Bench book sets out in 350 pages how judges should communicate with witnesses, defendants and lawyers in courts and tribunals in England and Wales. The Telegraph reports that this new version advises Judges in England and Wales to avoid terms such as “asylum seekers”, “immigrant”, “gays” and “lame”, all of which are now deemed “politically incorrect”. Finally, Toby Young has written in this week’s Spectator about the appointment of Becky Francis CBE to lead a review of the national curriculum. He writes, “As former director of the Institute of Education and current CEO of the Education Endowment Foundation, [Becky Francis] has the outward appearance of a technocrat. But scratch the surface and, like so many Labour appointees, she emerges as a long-standing adherent of left-wing identity politics”. ‘That's Debatable!’  is edited by Jason Clift.