We have written to the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police to object to GMP releasing the name, address and date of birth of a man arrested in Manchester city centre on the afternoon of 1st February for burning a copy of the Koran. Didn’t GMP stop to think that they’d be putting his life in danger, given that a man in Sweden was shot dead for burning a copy

We’re about to respond to the Bar Standards Board’s consultation about changing its rule book, whereby the core duty of barristers not to discriminate unlawfully against any person is replaced with a new core duty requiring them to advance equality, diversity and inclusion. We have various concerns about this, which you can read about in our draft response.

We’ve responded to the Institute & Faculty of Actuaries’ (IFoA) consultation on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI). Like many other professional and supervisory bodies, the IFoA is proposing to update its Code of Conduct to (among other changes) require its members to encourage DEI. We are concerned this will result in further suppression of members’ free speech and expression, especially as the IFoA’s code of conduct has very broad application,

The Free Speech Union has made two complaints about the email sent by the Master and Senior Tutor of Gonville and Caius, denouncing Dr Helen Joyce, who’d been invited to speak at the College by Dr Arif Ahmed, a Fellow of Cauis and a Professor of Philosophy. The first complaint is to the College Council, Caius’s governing body, pointing out that the email may have been a breach of the

The Free Speech Union has sent a letter before claim to the Secretary of State for Education under the Pre-Action Protocol for Judicial Review setting out why we think her decision not to commence the clauses of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act due to come into effect on 1st August was unlawful and notifying her of our intention to apply for a Judicial Review.

The Free Speech Union has sent a letter before claim to the Secretary of State for Education under the Pre-Action Protocol for Judicial Review setting out why we think her decision not to commence the clauses of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act due to come into effect on 1st August was unlawful and notifying her of our intention to apply for a Judicial Review.

The Free Speech Union has sent a letter before claim to the Secretary of State for Education under the Pre-Action Protocol for Judicial Review setting out why we think her decision not to commence the clauses of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act due to come into effect on 1st August was unlawful and notifying her of our intention to apply for a Judicial Review.

Local authoritarianism continues to spread, with a rash of local councils abusing their power to make Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs) to crack down on speech they don’t like. Previously, the FSU has succeeded in persuading Redbridge and Cumberland councils to back down from making PSPOs which would have unlawfully restricted the speech rights of their residents. Last week, Thanet District Council passed a PSPO of their own, and this

The FSU’s General Secretary has written to Penny Mordaunt MP about a guide she commissioned, along with the Labour MP Lucy Powell, that’s designed to help Parliamentarians identify ‘conspiracy theories’ in the run-up to the General Election and which has been sent to every MP and member of the House of Lords. Although well-intentioned, it has several major flaws, e.g., two of the guide’s co-authors identified the lab leak hypothesis

The Writers’ Advisory Council of the FSU has written to the Council of the Royal Society of Literature to object to its failure to condemn the violent attack on Salman Rushdie by an Islamist terrorist. They copied in Her Majesty the Queen, who is the patron of the Society.