Free speech will be in peril under Labour

Threats to freedom of speech in Britain today typically stem from a combination of two ways of thinking. First, the kindly authoritarian view that it should be the job of the state to protect its citizens from ‘harmful’ speech – and to censor and punish those who cause offence. And second, woke ideology, which means that harm-protection only applies to its favoured groups. So, a trans activist who tells a public audience ‘If you see a Terf, punch them in the… face’ is found to have only been seeking ‘publicity’; while a Christian street preacher is convicted of harassment after calling a trans woman a ‘gentleman’.

Of course, both these things happened under a Tory government. As an election looms, no one can say that the Conservatives have done much to push back against this grim cultural settlement in their 14 years in office.