Friday, April 25, 2025
MAKE A DONATION
Get in Touch
Member Login
BECOME A MEMBER
Join Today

In the Media

Articles That Mention the Free Speech Union

Trade unions must support free speech

Click here to read the article

And Clause 20 doesn’t just apply to shops and hospitality. The implications for academia are especially alarming. Under the Equality Act as it stands, visiting speakers are treated as third parties, and universities are under no legal duty to protect its staff from being “harassed” by them. This legal “gap” has proved crucial, allowing groups like the Free Speech Union to mount successful challenges when institutions over-apply the Act and attempt to no-platform speakers, whether invited guests or other staff members, whose views may be controversial but are entirely lawful.

Freddie Attenborough, The Critic, 20th April 2025.

Stop weighing in on politics, universities told

Click here to read the article

The group of academics, which also includes Lord Young, the head of the Free Speech Union, and Lord Biggar, a philosophy professor at the University of Oxford, urged UK institutions to instead adopt the principle that “the university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic”.

Poppy Wood, The Telegraph, 18th April 2025.

Trans victory was huge but new Labour laws means battle against woke isn’t over

Click here to read the article

Five years ago, when I set up an organisation to fight for free speech, I never imagined that my closest ­political allies would be a group of radical feminists. But on Wednesday evening I found myself co-hosting a party at the Hippodrome for Sex Matters, the LGB Alliance and For Women Scotland, the campaigning groups who have just won a tremendous victory in the Supreme Court.

Toby Young, The Sun, 18th April 2025.

Peers vow to fight Labour’s ‘banter ban’: Bid to block workers’ rights overhaul that could mean pub bosses getting sued if staff are offended by customer chat

Click here to read the article

Lord Young of Acton, the founder of the Free Speech Union, has warned the proposed laws will have a ‘chilling effect’ on free speech. He has tabled a series of amendments in the House of Lords in an effort to stop the clause, as it is currently worded, from becoming law. The Tory peer said his changes would stop pub or university bosses from having to ensure staff were not subject to harassment by hearing opinions they disagree with. He is hoping to tweak the laws so that opinions on political, moral, religious or social matters are exempt as long as that opinion is not ‘indecent or grossly offensive’.

Greg Heffer, Mail Online, 16th April 2025.

Crackdown on pub banter will help anxious staff, says minister

Click here to read the article

Lord Young, who co-founded the Free Speech Union, has called for a sweeping overhaul of the Bill to ensure the venues are excluded from the crackdown. As part of a series of amendments to the Bill, the Tory peer has proposed changes aimed at relieving pub bosses from acting as “banter cops”. This includes not expecting pubs or universities to protect employees from overhearing conversations which they might find offensive about political or religious matters, “provided the opinion is not indecent or grossly offensive”.

Amy Gibbons, The Telegraph, 16th April 2025.

Lords plot rebellion over Rayner’s crackdown on free speech in pubs

Click here to read the article

Lord Young, who co-founded the Free Speech Union, has called for a sweeping overhaul of Ms Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill to ensure these venues are excluded from the crackdown.

As part of a series of amendments to the Bill, the Tory peer has proposed changes aimed at relieving pub bosses from acting as “banter cops”. This includes not expecting pubs or universities to protect employees from overhearing conversations which they might find offensive about political or religious matters, “provided the opinion is not indecent or grossly offensive,” he said.

Lucy Burton, The Telegraph, 15th April 2025.

Welcome to the Free Speech Union


If you’re looking for information and guidance, or in need of immediate help, please click the button below:
GET IN TOUCH