Yesterday, the Liberal Democrats launched their 2024 election manifesto, For A Fair Deal, and we’ve reviewed the document for what it has to say about the five freedoms we defend – freedom of speech, academic freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of the press and freedom of religion. Although the document is curiously silent on academic freedom, it touches on the other four freedoms in some detail. Here are the key pledges.
DIGITAL BILL OF RIGHTS
“Defend hard-won British rights and freedoms by: Introducing a Digital Bill of Rights to protect everyone’s rights online, including the rights to privacy, free expression, and participation without being subjected to harassment and abuse”. (p.94).
This sounds attractive, but we know from experience that people engaging in perfectly lawful, but controversial speech can find themselves kicked off social media platforms – or worse – under the guise of protecting various victim groups from “harassment and abuse”. (See for instance the pre-Elon Musk Twitter policy of banning people – including comedy writer Graham Linehan, barrister Dennis Kavanagh, journalist Meghan Murphy and philosopher Holly Lawford-Smith – for expressing gender critical beliefs, as well as Meta-owned Instagram’s recent wave of censorship of account users who speak out against gender ideology.)
ANTI-SLAPP LEGISLATION
“Pass a comprehensive ‘Anti-Slapp Law’ to provide robust protection for free speech, whistleblowers and media scrutiny against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.” (p.84).
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation – Slapps – represent a heavy-handed form of litigation used by wealthy individuals or companies to harass, intimidate and deter journalists (and non-journalists) from reporting on their wrongdoing, thereby discouraging scrutiny of matters in the public interest.
In recent years, Slapps have become notorious after a series of high-profile legal actions against journalists in the UK courts designed to stifle free speech and suppress legitimate reporting.
We therefore welcome this proposal. We’ve written more about Slapps here.
FREEDOM OF BELIEF AMBASSADOR
“Appointing an ambassador-level Champion for Freedom of Belief.” (p.110).
This too sounds attractive, but the danger is that some beliefs will be championed more than others. Will orthodox Christian beliefs be championed by a Lib Dem government, for instance?
According to a recent UK poll commissioned by the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life (IIFL), nearly 40 per cent of British Christians don’t like telling others about their faith for fear of “inadvertently ending up in someone’s bad books”.
Telling others about your Christian beliefs can be particularly dangerous in the Liberal Democratic Party. Christian Lib Dems recently complained of a “night of the long knives” after former BBC journalist David Campanale was interrogated over his faith and then deselected as the prospective Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for Sutton and Cheam after he confessed to being pro-life.
CONVERSION THERAPY BAN
“Ban all forms of conversion therapies and practices” (p.94)
Conversion therapies and practices aim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The FSU has written previously about the likely impact legislation of this kind will have on free speech (here), e.g. it could criminalise conversations in which health professionals and parents try to discourage gender-confused adolescents from embarking on irreversible medical pathways on the grounds that such conversations are an attempt to ‘convert’ someone from being transgender to cisgender.
EXTEND HATE CRIME LEGISLATION
“Make misogyny a hate crime and give police and prosecutors the resources and training they need to prevent and prosecute all hate crimes while supporting survivors.” (p.93).
“Stand up to hatred by … [e]xposing and confronting the stereotyping, demagoguery and hate speech in public life and the media that inflames hatred and leads to spikes in hate crimes.” (p.95).
The risk of criminalising ‘hate speech’ is that the authorities will designate any expression of dissent from ideological orthodoxy as ‘hate speech’. For instance, we went to bat for Kellie-Jay Keen after Change.org removed a petition she started asking the Oxford English Dictionary to keep its definition of ‘woman’ as an “adult human female” on the grounds that defining ‘woman’ in such a “trans-exclusionary” way was ‘hate speech’.
TACKLING SO-CALLED ‘FAKE NEWS’
“Support the BBC both to provide impartial news and information, and to take a leading role in increasing media literacy and educating all generations in tackling the impact of fake news.” (p.84).
The difficulty with this proposal is that no media company can be trusted to objectively distinguish between real news and fake news, particularly not a state broadcaster. (See BBC Verify.)
STATE REGULATION OF THE PRESS
“Support independent, Leveson-compliant regulation to ensure privacy, quality, diversity and choice in both print and online media, and proceed with Part Two of the Leveson Inquiry.” (p. 84).
This is shorthand for forcing all newspapers and magazines to submit themselves to regulation by Impress, the state-approved press regulator. The Free Speech Union is opposed to state regulation of the press for obvious reasons.
‘BUFFER ZONES’ AROUND HEALTHCARE SETTINGS
“Protect everyone’s right to make independent decisions over their reproductive health without interference by the state and ensure access to high-quality reproductive healthcare, including enforcing safe access zones around abortion clinics and hospitals.” (p.95)
The Free Speech Union doesn’t take sides in the abortion debate, but is dubious about arresting Christians engaging in silent prayer in buffer zones outside family planning clinics.
Last year, we brought together an expert panel to help us explore these questions, including two of the main protagonists in the ‘buffer zones’ debate. You can watch the video on our YouTube channel here.
