Kemi is right to take on ‘non-crime hate incidents’
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The Free Speech Union estimates that police are recording as many as 65 per day.
Hugo Timms, Spiked, 23rd April 2025.
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The Free Speech Union estimates that police are recording as many as 65 per day.
Hugo Timms, Spiked, 23rd April 2025.
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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.
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The Telegraph understands Mr Camus is planning to appeal against the ban with the help of the Free Speech Union, led by Lord Young, a Tory peer.
Amy Gibbons, The Telegraph, 19th April 2025.
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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.
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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.
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Peers are anticipated to try and block the ‘banter crackdown’ next month, as Lord Young of Acton, the founder of the Free Speech Union, warned the proposed anti harassment clause will have a ‘chilling effect’ on free speech.
Shannon McGuigan and Greg Heffer, Mail Online, 17th April 2025.
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Young, the founder of the Free Speech Union, said that the way the law was drafted would mean an employee could take offence on behalf of another member of staff, even if they did not hear the comments made.
Max Kendix, The Times, 16th April 2025.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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