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In the Media

Articles That Mention the Free Speech Union

Ageism, the latest thought crime in the SNP’s finger-wagging, moralistic Scotland

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At a railway station outside Edinburgh this week I saw a sign stating ‘…will not be tolerated’. That particular instruction was for trespassers daft enough to risk getting smashed like a tomato with a baseball bat by a racing train if they opted for the live track shortcut instead of the stairs. That seems a worthwhile warning. Unfortunately, it isn’t just railway trespassers that aren’t tolerated north of the Border. This intolerance now extends to vast swathes of our language.

Fraser Hudghton, MailOnline, 13th August 2023.

Scots could face criminal records for calling someone a “grumpy old man” under SNP’s plans for barmy new laws that make ageism a hate crime

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Last night, Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union, said: “The notion that describing someone as a ‘grumpy old man’ or a ‘callow youth’ should be a hate crime is ludicrous. How does the Scottish Government propose to police this? It still hasn’t activated the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act because Police Scotland doesn’t have the resources to investigate the deluge of complaints it will receive, with thousands of neighbours and ex-lovers accusing each other of hate crimes. Not a single ‘hate crime’ set out in the Act has been prosecuted. Adding ‘ageism’ to the list is therefore just meaningless blather, typical of this zombie government.”

Georgia Edkins, MailOnline, 13th August 2023.

Diversity group in Nigel Farage-Coutts bank row wants law change

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Campaigners from the Free Speech Union (FSU), in a report on B Corp, claim the move, if successful, could lead to controversial social justice and EDI policies being cemented in UK companies.
The FSU says that the amendment would impose “a legal duty” on company directors to operate the organisation “in a manner that benefits the members, wider society and the environment”.

James Beal, The Times, 11th August 2023.

Magistrates body bans “chairMEN” and “policeMEN”

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Toby Young, director of the Free Speech Union, said: “People are sick to the back teeth of this obsession with policing people’s speech. Do these woke warriors really think they’ll dismantle the patriarchy if people start referring to policemen as police officers? The Magistrates Association should be focusing on getting through the backlog of cases and making sure anti-social behaviour is properly punished.”

MailOnline, 9th August 2023.

Elon Musk promises to foot legal bills of people fired for web posts

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Toby Young, who founded the Free Speech Union, said: “If Elon Musk is serious about funding the legal cases of people who’ve been fired (or kicked out of university) for posting or liking something on this platform, that could be a game-changer.”
He said the Free Speech Union had “gone to bat for hundreds of people this applies to, but limited funds means we have to be quite selective about the cases we take to court”.

James Beal, The Times, 7th August 2023.

BBC faces mass revolt from television viewers with 2.8 million claiming they no longer need to pay TV licence fee

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Toby Young, the Founder and Director of the Free Speech Union said: “These figures show that the TV licence fee is not a viable funding model for the BBC going forward.”
He added: “The obvious alternative is to become a subscription-based service like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Given the BBC’s global brand recognition and its reputation for producing premium content, it could become the largest and most profitable streaming service in the world.”

Chris Hastings, Daily Mail, 6th August 2023.

“PayPal needs to embrace free speech if it wants to operate in UK”

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Toby Young, from the Free Speech Union, said: “If PayPal’s licence to operate in the UK is renewed I think at the very least they should agree to abide by the same rules as other payment services providers operating under licence in the UK and not debank customers because they disapprove of their political views provided they’re perfectly lawful.”

Louisa Clarence-Smith and Neil Johnston, The Telegraph, 4th August 2023.

NHS managers are told not to offer sympathy to female colleagues worried about sharing toilets with biological men in woke handbook

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In a letter to bosses at the Trust, Toby Young, director of the Free Speech Union, said: ‘We are writing to request that this policy be immediately withdrawn and an urgent review undertaken. We are especially concerned by its insistence that female staff cannot refuse to use the same bathroom facilities as biological males and cannot express any concerns about having to do so. The Trust must strike a balance between protecting trans individuals from harassment and discrimination and protecting the rights of gender-critical employees.”

Connor Stringer, Jack Hardy and Shaun Wooller, Mail Online, 3rd August 2023.

Author Gillian Philip who was dumped by agent over her support for JK Rowling says women are “terrified” of speaking out on trans debate because of fears they’ll lose their jobs if they are targeted by cancel culture mob

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Speaking of cancel culture, Ms Philip said in the new podcast episode: ‘It is entirely a mob mentality. It is madness of crowds, it is whipped up like witch hunts. The ultimate insult is that they turn around and say, “well cancel culture isn’t real, this didn’t happen”.’

Harry Howard, Mail Online, 2nd August 2023.

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