FSU helps Nick Buckley MBE keep his honour after Whitehall committee threat

Max Thompson, Campaigns Officer

29 July 2026

Nick Buckley MBE has spent years serving his community in Greater Manchester. He worked with homeless people for 15 years and founded the charity Mancunian Way to tackle homelessness and help uncover child sexual exploitation. He has also stood as a parliamentary candidate. For his years of dedicated service, he was awarded an MBE.

Last December, that honour was put at risk. Mr Buckley received a letter from the Forfeiture Committee informing him that his MBE could be revoked because he had allegedly "brought the honours system into disrepute". The Committee pointed to comments he had made on social media, which it considered "beyond political comment", "racist" and "homophobic".

Mr Buckley was not informed that the Committee was meeting to consider stripping him of his honour. When he was eventually given the chance to respond, he seized it — and turned to the Free Speech Union for help.

How the FSU stepped in

With the FSU's assistance, Mr Buckley submitted detailed representations explaining why the Committee's conclusions were flawed. The FSU's General Secretary, Lord Young of Acton, also wrote to the Head of the Honours and Memorialisation Secretariats at the Cabinet Office, setting out the inconsistencies in the case and reminding the Committee that the threshold for stripping someone of an honour is intentionally high.

The Government's own guidance states that forfeiture is generally appropriate only where someone:

• has been convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to more than three months' imprisonment;
• has been censured or struck off by a relevant regulatory or professional body for conduct directly relevant to the award of the honour;
• has been convicted of a sexual offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (England and Wales), the Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008, or the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009; or
• has been found, following a trial of the facts, to have committed a sexual offence listed in the legislation above.

Whatever people make of Mr Buckley's social media posts, it is clear they came nowhere near meeting these criteria.

A pattern of inconsistency

Mr Buckley's case raises broader questions about how consistently the Forfeiture Committee applies the test of bringing the honours system "into disrepute". It appears he was singled out because of his views.

The Committee has now written to Mr Buckley confirming that he can keep his honour. But this ordeal should never have happened.

The Forfeiture Committee is a shadowy body operating within Whitehall. The Free Speech Union has dealt with a number of cases in which people who have devoted their lives to serving their communities have found their life's work placed at risk because an obscure committee disapproved of their opinions or comments. Lord Young raised his concerns about the Forfeiture Committee and the Removal of Peerages Bill in a recent article for The Spectator.

The proposed Removal of Peerages Bill risks exacerbating this trend. Time and again, we see those expressing mainstream concerns — such as about mass, uncontrolled migration — branded as "far-right" and made the target of vexatious complaints, facing a greater risk of punishment than those on the political left. The Forfeiture Committee and the Removal of Peerages Bill risk being weaponised to silence dissenting voices that do not conform to prevailing progressive orthodoxies.

The Free Speech Union is proud to have helped Mr Buckley retain his honour.

You can watch Nick Buckley MBE's testimonial here, and become a member of the Free Speech Union.