Two parallel private members' bills targeting SLAPPs — strategic lawsuits used by wealthy litigants to silence journalists, campaigners, and whistleblowers — have been introduced in both Houses of Parliament this week. Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Sir John Whittingdale MP are behind the respective bills, which would give judges the power to dismiss such cases at the earliest possible stage. The FSU welcomes the move.
In a positive move for free speech, the Education has finally commenced the section in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act that establishes a statutory complaints scheme.
The Conservative peer Lord Ranger is suing the Prime Minister after the Forfeiture Committee — a shadowy Whitehall body — stripped him of his CBE following a House of Lords standards ruling that he had harassed journalist Poonam Joshi on X. His lawyers argue the removal was disproportionate and will chill free speech. The FSU, which has supported others who have lost honours through the same opaque process, warns that the Government's Removal of the Peerages Bill threatens to extend that chilling effect to the Lords itself.
Oxford professor and expert on equality law Dr Michael Foran has been forced to cancel his lecture series after sustained abuse from trans activists.
South Wales Police have shelved their controversial "anti-Muslim hostility" definition after the Free Speech Union threatened them with a judicial review.
Senior figures at Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service have cautioned firefighters who support Reform UK and urged staff to report colleagues over their political views — prompting the Free Speech Union to write to Mayor Andy Burnham warning of a chilling effect on lawful political expression.
The Chairman of Bradford's policing scrutiny panel was sacked by West Yorkshire Police after complaining that officers were ignoring the elephant in the room of Islamist extremism after last year's synagogue attack.
Meta is silencing Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former Director of Global Public Policy at Facebook, who published a memoir — Careless People — containing damning claims about the company's internal culture and its appeasement of the Chinese government. Bound by a legal order that exposes her to a $50,000 fine for every breach, Wynn-Williams sat in silence on stage at the Hay Festival while Professor Tim Wu answered questions on her behalf.
FSU member James Cooper has been unanimously acquitted of violent disorder at Manchester Crown Court, after the Free Speech Union funded his defence over his attendance at a 2024 protest outside a Manchester asylum hotel.
Henry Nowak, an 18-year-old student, was stabbed with a 21cm ceremonial knife on a night out in Southampton. When police arrived, they handcuffed and arrested him for an alleged racial slur rather than trying to save his life. The Free Speech Union has long warned that the police need to get their priorities straight, and there are serious questions Hampshire Police must answer.
South Wales Police has told officers to log anti-Islam conversations that stray beyond what it deems "legitimate" — a subjective threshold that hands individual officers the power to determine acceptable speech and could see lawful expression recorded as an anti-social behaviour incident, potentially appearing in DBS checks. The Free Speech Union has written to the force demanding it withdraw the guidance, warning of judicial review if it refuses.
British citizens are flocking to freedom.gov, a "censorship circumvention project" set up by the Trump administration's State Department, to bypass the restrictive online safety laws imposed by the UK's Online Safety Act and the EU's Digital Services Act. Sarah Rogers, US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, says Brits are visiting the site more than any other nationality — because they are living under a government "hostile to freedom of speech".
