The costs of speaking freely are rising

There is an inherent irony in a national newspaper columnist catching attention for a piece about how they have been silenced. Yet the fact that this is becoming more common should make us question whether the freedom to speak our minds is being eroded.

Adding to the pile this week is Suzanne Moore, until recently a columnist at the Guardian. Earlier this month Moore abruptly exited Britain’s main progressive newspaper, tweeting, “I have left the Guardian. I will very much miss SOME of the people there.”

Those Moore won’t miss include 338 colleagues, from the technical, commercial and editorial teams, who targeted her in a letter published on BuzzFeed in March. The signatories described themselves as “disappointed in the Guardian’s repeated decision to publish anti-trans views”.

Though Moore wasn’t mentioned by name, the letter was organised after she defended sex-based rights, meaning those that apply to natal females but not trans women. “Sex is not a feeling,” she wrote. “Female is a biological classification that applies to all living species. If you produce large immobile gametes, you are female. Even if you are a frog.”

As an established journalist Moore will survive, in many ways freer to express herself in publications that have fielded gender critical views. But her departure shows that the kind of high-profile exits seen in American journalism over alleged internal censorship have made their way to Britain.

Newspapers should be free to publish or not publish who they choose, of course. What is interesting about these exits is that they have often been spurred by pressure from fellow staff members, rather than high-handed proprietors. A narrow groupthink is evidently taking hold in many newsrooms.

This coincides with an alarming review of Britain’s legal framework for policing speech by the Adam Smith Institute, a free market think tank. Technology lawyer Preston Byrne argues that evolving use of established law is allowing those taking offence to criminalise those giving it, adding that planned reforms could exacerbate this problem.

“British speech code is designed to protect the heckler, not the speaker,” he writes. “It protects the offended, not those who would cause offence. It does this by creating subjective standards for speech regulation which are determined by the hearer, not the speaker or an objective third party observer, and as such are impossible to divine in advance.”

Among the culprits for this state of affairs are the Public Order Act 1986, Communications Act 2003, and the Malicious Communications Act 1988. All these, Byrne argues, are being used to regulate what we can say about politics.

The first of these was invoked recently in the police’s decision to investigate activist Darren Grimes and the historian David Starkey. Speaking on Grimes’ podcast, Starkey said the survival of “so many damn blacks” disproved the claim that slavery was genocide. Investigations were quickly dropped, but many will tread more carefully after the incident.

Perhaps more egregious is Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, which makes it an offence to send electronically “a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character” – effectively outlawing most of the fun parts of the internet. This is buttressed by the Malicious Communications Act, which makes it illegal to send a communication that is “indecent or grossly offensive”.

Byrne’s suggested reforms to these acts include limiting Section 127 to threatening messages, while introducing legal provisions to combat stalking. He also argues that a free speech act modelled on the first amendment to the US constitution should be implemented, although I am sceptical how this would work given our concept of parliamentary sovereignty. 

For now, it would be enough to limit further encroachments on free speech, the most worrying development of which is Scotland’s infamous hate crime bill. Championed by the Scottish National Party, it seeks to consolidate hate crime legislation, but is proposing a new offence for intentionally “stirring up hatred” which extends to speech in private homes. Among the sceptics are the free speech zealots at the Scottish Police Federation and Law Society of Scotland.

Scottish justice secretary Humza Yousaf has made several concessions because of the criticism, but there are no plans to shelve the bill. Indeed, those with his instincts south of the border could make ground through a Law Commission consultation on hate speech and the government’s Online Harms proposals. All these trends could affect political speech.

Coupled with many institutions’ willingness to sacrifice staff over the slightest controversy, our ability to speak our minds looks increasingly precarious. While we still enjoy rancorous debate over topics as contentious as immigration, lockdown and Brexit, the social, economic and legal risks of speaking up are going up. The dangers if we don’t reverse course are self-evident.

A Message from TheArticle

We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout the pandemic. So please, make a donation.