Dear Mike Buchanan,

Welcome to the FSU’s weekly newsletter, our round-up of the free speech news of the week. As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join and help turn the tide against cancel culture. You can share our newsletters on social media with the buttons at the bottom of this email (although not if you’re reading this on a desktop). If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.

Latest episode of the FSU’s weekly podcast out now

The latest episode of our weekly podcast is now available. This week, much of Tom and Ben’s conversation is taken up with a review of the best free speech related books in 2023, including several authors who have starred on earlier podcast episodes, such as Matt Johnson and Sharron Davies. Other recommendations range from Justin Brierly’s The surprising rebirth of belief in God through to a new book by Greg Lukianoff (president of FIRE in the USA) and Rikki Schlott, The Cancelling of the American Mind: how cancel culture undermines trust, destroys institutions and threatens us all. The episode is essential listening if you would like some fresh Christmas present ideas!

Tom and Ben also discuss the latest and rather surprising victim of cancel culture – public holidays. The Canadian Human Rights Commission recently published a report arguing that statutory holidays in Canada are an example of “present day systemic religious discrimination”. In the UK, meanwhile, the Equality and Human Rights Commission is under investigation for suggesting that the definition of sex in the 2010 Equality Act should be clarified so it better protects sex-based women’s rights. As reported last week, tightening the wording to ‘biological sex’ would amount to “actively harming trans people”, according to trans rights activists.

Presidents of Harvard, MIT and Penn make fools of themselves in Congress

Much bruhaha across the Atlantic after three heads of Ivy League universities were hauled before Congress to explain why they hadn’t done more about pro-Palestinian, genocidal chants on their campuses. New York Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik asked all three if “calling for the genocide of Jews” went against the codes of conduct at Harvard, MIT and Penn and all three presidents said it depended on the context.

Liz Magill, the President of Penn, realised she’d made a poor fist of it and put out a statement the following day. “In that moment,” she said, referring to her answer to Stefanik, “I was focused on our university’s longstanding policies aligned with the US Constitution, which says that speech alone is not punishable. I was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate. It’s evil – plain and simple.”

Having decided that such calls would in fact constitute ‘harassment’ of Jewish students, Magill announced that Penn would no longer rely on the US Constitution as a guide when it comes to what limits to place on freedom of expression, but “initiate a serious and careful look at our policies” to make sure they do more to tackle “hate proliferating across our campus and our world”.

This, of course, was exactly the wrong response. As Steven Pinker observed on X, she should have said that the tolerance shown to pro-Palestinian protestors at Penn – provided they don’t breach the First Amendment – would henceforth be extended to other, equally controversial speech on campus:

The wrong way for the elite universities to dig themselves out their reputational hole: restrict speech even more.

Instead:

1. Clear & coherent free speech policy.
2. Institutional neutrality: Universities are forums, not protagonists.
3. Force prohibited: No more heckler’s vetoes, building takeovers, classroom invasions, intimidations, blockades, assaults.
4. Disempower DEI bureaucrats, responsible to no one, who have turned campuses into laughingstocks.
5. Viewpoint diversity: Discourage political & intellectual monocultures (including hard-left/PoMo/‘intersectional’).

The reason the three Ivy League presidents got into such a pickle is because they haven’t displayed the same forbearance when it comes to other students with controversial views. As Brendan O’Neill pointed out in Spiked, these same university administrators have overseen the creation of ‘safe spaces’, introduced policies prohibiting ‘microaggressions’ and done nothing to stop noisy protestors vetoing conservative speakers on campus. “Jews clearly are not covered by the new moral order on campus,” Brendan concluded.

I was a guest on Brendan’s podcast this week in which we discussed this and other matters. You can listen to that here.

FSU Comedy Benefit on 20th December

There are just under two weeks to go until our spectacular, annual Comedy Benefit on Wednesday 20th December. Our MC for the evening is FSU favourite Dominic Frisby and he will be joined on stage by a fantastic line-up: Francis Foster, Daniel O’Reilly, Tania Edwards and Alistair Williams. (Alistair has just won the British Comedian of the Year Award.)

Come and let your hair down with the FSU staff as we celebrate another successful year defending free speech. So, round up your friends and family and get your tickets here. You will also be able to purchase the perfect Christmas gifts – our brand-new tote bags, featuring inspiring free speech quotes, as well as gift memberships for the FSU (which you can purchase now here).

Conservative MP Bob Stewart appealing conviction for hate crime

Veteran Tory MP Colonel Bob Stewart was convicted of a hate crime last month after being deemed to have committed a “racially aggravated public-order offence” during an altercation with a heckler outside the Bahraini embassy (Express, Telegraph, Times). According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) press release, “he used racist language towards the victim”, and demonstrated “racial hostility likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to those present at the time”.

Anyone reading that description of Mr Stewart could be forgiven for conjuring images of a card-carrying member of the National Front, but raw footage of the incident reveals that the reality was rather different.

A video recorded by Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei from the UK-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy shows him confronting Mr Stewart last December while the MP was leaving an event organised by the Bahraini embassy at the Foreign Office’s Leicester House.

Mr Alwadaei, who is off camera, can be heard accusing Mr Stewart of “selling” himself to Bahrain. (Mr Stewart is an ex-Army Officer who was stationed in Bahrain in the 1960s.) Visibly annoyed, Mr Stewart responds: “Get stuffed. Bahrain’s a great place. End of.” A fractious exchange ensues, and at one point Mr Stewart can be heard telling Mr Alwadaei to “Go back to Bahrain”.

All part of the rough and tumble of democratic politics, you might think. And yet the Metropolitan Police saw things differently – so much so, in fact, that when a complaint was lodged by the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy regarding Mr Stewart’s off-the-cuff remark about Mr Alwadaei “going back to Bahrain”, they launched an investigation.

The denouement came last month when Westminster Magistrates’ Court found the MP guilty of racially abusing a member of the public. Asked during the trial how Mr Stewart’s comments made him feel, Mr Alwadaei replied: “I feel that I was dehumanised, that I was someone who is not wanted in the UK. I did not feel safe after that incident.”

Following the one-day trial, Mr Stewart was convicted of a racially aggravated public order offence and fined £600, forcing him to resign the Conservative whip in the House of Commons. Now, Mr Stewart is appealing that verdict with the case due to be heard in the Crown Court next Friday. He has already run up huge costs, so we’re asking our members to support the crowdfunder that a fellow MP has set up to help him with his expenses. You can find the crowdfunder here.

The veteran MP served in the Army for nearly 30 years, including stints in Northern Ireland and Bosnia, and has pledged to donate to the Royal British Legion any amount above the level needed to meet his costs.

Forthcoming FSU events in Belfast and Manchester – tickets now available

We will be kicking off the New Year with our first visit to Belfast, and for this inaugural event we have invited an incredible panel of speakers – Toby Young, Andrew Doyle, Stella O’Malley, David Quinn, Ella Whelan and Jeffrey Dudgeon – to discuss ‘The State of Free Speech in Northern Ireland’. Please mark the evening of Friday 26th January in your new diaries and calendars and start making plans to get to the beautiful Titanic Hotel in Belfast for an evening of debate and socialising. Tickets are selling very fast, so do book here now to avoid disappointment.

From Belfast we’ll be hotfooting it to Manchester: on Saturday 3rd February, we’ll be at The Anthony Burgess Foundation for a night of discussion with a spot of live music thrown in too. Toby Young will be speaking to Sean Corby and Denise Fahmy, two courageous FSU members who we have helped through legal battles to defend the importance of viewpoint diversity in the workplace. Sean is a professional musician, and as well as explaining why it mattered so much to him to take a principled stand, he will be playing from his extensive jazz repertoire. Tickets are on sale here.

Conversion therapy ban still looms large

Sorry to bang on about this, but we need you to keep writing to your MPs urging them to oppose a bill banning conversion therapy. On Wednesday, a Westminster Hall debate took place in which a succession of Labour MPs urged the government to bring forward such a bill – and there’s still a risk that the government will publish one in due course. Kemi Badenoch, the Minister for Women and Equalities, said as much in a House of Commons debate on Wednesday. In addition, a private members bill in the Lords banning conversion therapy is due to have its second reading next month and another private members bill, this one proposed by the Brighton MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle, is also due to be debated next month.

In case you need reminding, ‘conversion therapy’ as commonly understood is already illegal in this country. So what is it the LGBTQ+ lobby wants to ban? The answer is, they want to criminalise any conversations between health professionals and gender-confused adolescents and between parents and their children that are intended to steer people away from having irreversible medical procedures. If you need reminding why the FSU is opposing a gender conversion therapy ban, visit our home page.

Please use our campaigning tool to contact your MP and tell them not to vote for any such bill and urge the Prime Minister not to publish one. It only takes a couple of minutes to fill out. You can find it here.

Kind regards,

Toby Young

General Secretary