BELFAST SPEAKEASY: Policing the Streets vs Policing our Tweets
DATE: Friday 11th April, 2025
TIME:
6.30pm Doors and bar open.
7.30pm to 9pm Panel with Q & A.
9pm to 10.30pm Social.
VENUE: The Ulster Museum, Stranmillis Road, Botanic Gardens, Belfast, BT9 5AB
TICKETS: £8 for FSU members, £12 for non-members, £5 for students
Join us for a lively evening of conversation and debate as the FSU hosts its third Northern Ireland Speakeasy.
We have a panel of three amazing speakers: free speech activist Harry Miller, journalist and editor of spiked magazine Tom Slater and Belfast-based writer Jenny Holland.
Harry Miller is the co-founder of the pressure group Fair Cop and was the first person to shine a light on the problem of the Orwellian-sounding ‘Non-Crime Hate Incidents’ (NCHIs). An NCHI can be logged against an individual’s name and held in police files even though that person has said and done nothing illegal. In Harry’s case, it was the retweeting of a feminist limerick that led to him being investigated by Humberside Police in 2019. Unfortunately for Humberside Police but fortunately for free speech the police had picked on ‘the wrong guy’. Harry fought back and won two landmark free speech cases at the High Court and the Court of Appeal.
In the High Court ruling, the judge, Mr Justice Julian Holmes, said:
“The effect of the police turning up at his place of work because of his political opinions must not be underestimated. To do so would be to undervalue a cardinal democratic freedom. In this country we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi. We have never lived in an Orwellian society…the police’s actions, taken as a whole, had a chilling effect on his right to freedom of expression.”
When Harry went on to take the College of Policing to the Court of Appeal in 2021 to challenge their ‘Hate Crime Operational Guidance’, he won a significant victory for free speech. Thanks to Harry’s persistence, these judgements can be cited by other free speech campaigners and he has worked tirelessly on behalf of members of the public whose lawful expression has been subject to similar unwanted police attention. He regularly appears in the media, and writes for The Critic Magazine.
Tom Slater is the editor of spiked — the magazine that campaigns for freedom of speech, with no ifs and no buts. He also writes regularly for the Spectator, has written for the Sun, the Telegraph and the Sunday Times, and he appears regularly on TV and radio. Tom is also co-host of the spiked podcast, a weekly round-up of news and controversy, and Last Orders, a podcast all about freedom and the nanny state. Spiked is about to celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary and over that period, it has won a reputation for being the one of the most bold and consistent defenders of free speech.
Jenny Holland is an Irish-American writer based in Belfast. She spent several years working in mainstream media in the US, including three years working at the New York Times, before returning to Northern Ireland. She now writes Saving Culture (from itself) on Substack, and has written for spiked, the Critic, Feminist Current and the Spectator US.
Come along on Friday 11th April to hear from our fascinating panel and to have your say.
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