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WITHOUT free speech, democracy cannot function and universities are pointless.
Progress depends on the ability to speak freely and without fear.
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Allowing the correction of mistaken “facts” and the improvement of poorly constructed concepts.
Until recently in the UK, this would have gone without saying. No more.
Bullying of academics and students on university campuses and intimidation of politicians and candidates in elections made legal protection of this fundamental freedom necessary.
So the previous Conservative government brought in A Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act.
This followed a number of appalling incidents and gradual erosion of academic freedom.
Professor Kathleen Stock had been hounded out of her job at Sussex University for stating a simple biological fact that men cannot become women and vice versa.
There were many instances where invited speakers were cancelled or howled down because their views did not align with the current fashion at that university — or with those who funded them.
There is evidence many British universities accepting large grants from Chinese companies were advising students and academics not to criticise China in spite of China’s genocidal actions against the Uighur, Muslims who live in west China.
If all this seems abstract, it is not. Bad things happen to people when free speech is denied.
You only need to look at Dr Hilary Cass’s review of NHS child gender medicine.
She pointed out that health care workers and researchers had been bullied into silence.
If their alternative views on treatments had been implemented, it is likely that fewer children would have been damaged by inappropriate treatments.
Extremists laid siege
I was therefore disappointed when my colleague Bridget Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education, decided to stop and not implement this Act.
This was done by an announcement on the Education Department’s website, thus denying, at least in the short term, MPs the right to challenge and debate the cancellation of this act. This is beyond irony.
We live in an increasingly complex society of people from many different cultures, religions and backgrounds.
It is important that laws are understood and applied evenly. The police bravely protected a mosque in Southport, when thugs and criminals attacked it.
One can argue about the length of a prison sentence, but it was right to prosecute Julie Sweeney for her Facebook comments that mosques should not be protected but should be “blown up with the adults in it”.
Compare this to the lack of prosecution and action by police after a religious education teacher at Batley Grammar had to go into hiding after giving a lesson in which there was a visual depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.
Outside extremists laid siege to the school and the teacher has been in hiding for three years.
The Labour MP for the area sadly did not condemn the extremists and they have still not been prosecuted.
While policing and justice always have to take account of the environment in which they exist, this uneven treatment will lead to more trouble in the future.
When I was leader of Manchester City Council 35 years ago, I was faced with a comparable situation.
The Muslim community wanted Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses withdrawn from Manchester’s libraries. I refused.
There is no blasphemy law in this country. Nobody was being forced to read Rushdie’s novel and the strong feelings of one community should not restrict the freedoms of others.
Stable society
Feelings in elections often run high. After all, the future of our country is at stake in every general election.
The intimidation and threat of violence in those constituencies where independent candidates stood was unprecedented.
They stood on a platform of supporting Palestinians in Gaza, often difficult to distinguish from supporting the terrorist organisation Hamas.
Leaflets were put out in breach of electoral law, the name of the publisher and the agent was not displayed as were required.
In all probability, by expressing implied support for Hamas, they were in breach of anti-terror laws.
The police refused to investigate: “We don’t know who has produced these leaflets.”
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I thought the whole point of the police was to investigate and find out who was responsible for illegal acts!
During my 27 years in Parliament I have had the privilege of representing Christians, Jews, Muslims and people of no religion. Freedom of speech and tolerance, even-handed policing and justice, are vital in creating a healthy and stable society.
We don’t have to look at other societies, that have descended into sectarian violence, as a lesson in what not to do.
We can look at our own history where hundreds of Protestants and Catholics were executed for their faith because we had not developed freedoms we have today.
