From today, ‘Stop Brexit Man’ is free. This character, whose real name is Steve Bray, the long-standing bane of broadcasters, politicians and pedestrians on account of his persistent and clamorous pro-EU protests, has been cleared of flouting a police ban after playing anti-Conservative and anti-Brexit songs outside Parliament.
Bray was apprehended after blaring loud music through speakers last March, when the then prime minister Rishi Sunak arrived for Prime Minister’s Questions. Today, Westminster Magistrates’ Court found him not guilty of failing without reasonable excuse to comply with a direction given under a 2011 Act on ‘prohibited activities in Parliament Square’.
Free speech matters for the underdogs
Some might lament that ‘Stop Brexit Man’ has not himself been stopped. They will sigh that this modern-day Don Quixote will most likely continue his noisy, one-man war against reality. But instead of groaning, we should be celebrating. This is a triumph for free speech. Liberty doesn’t merely entail defending to the death the freedoms of those you disagree with, but defending those you find deeply tiresome and tedious. Or
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