The death throes of free speech in Britain – and its opponents

Free speech, the very bedrock of constitutional democracy, is writhing on its deathbed in England. It will take a mass movement to restore its vitality. Fortunately, one can see that movement emerging among a once-free people, tired of government suppression.

The dire state of British liberties was outlined Wednesday in Congressional testimony by British MP, Nigel Farage, who testified before the US House Judiciary Committee. He was backed by the committee’s Republican members and attacked, alas, by Democrats. 

Powerful as his testimony was, it was overshadowed by an even more striking event: a phalanx of armed police arriving at Heathrow airport to arrest an Irish comedian for a tweet he posted in Arizona. His crime: he made fun of transgender people. Toss him in the dungeon.

This is the same law enforcement, mind you, that ignored decades of child rape and “grooming” by Pakistani Muslims in northern England. 

How is the lax treatment of grooming gangs connected to the harsh treatment of tweeting? By more than the lunacy and hypocrisy. The deeper connection is that successive Labour and Conservative governments have considered it more important to “protect” minority groups against bad words and criminal investigations than to protect innocent children or ensure free speech and open inquiry. “Social justice,” don’t you know?

The collapse of free speech, under the repressive hand of British government, is deeply linked to the massive influx of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East, who have little interest in adapting to English laws and customs and every interest in protecting the customs of their native lands. They have consistently refused to adopt the basic ideals of tolerance and forbearance that are fundamental to any functioning multicultural democracies.

Instead of pushing back against this illiberal tide – an essential task if liberal democracy is to survive – political leaders in the UK and most of Western Europe have appeased it. Just as bad, they have suppressed any opposition.

The common theme among these feckless leaders is their lack of confidence in their own cultural traditions and historic national achievements. They have refused to stand up for those basic values and traditions in the face of ferocious, illiberal assaults, stemming mainly from these hostile immigrant communities, often supported by progressive elites, who share the leaders’ lack of cultural self-confidence. Instead of resisting these illiberal assaults, halting immigration, and limiting the lifelong provision of free housing and income, those leaders have acceded to these demands and smacked down anyone who says different. The price has been enormous.

How bad is it? Bad enough that people are now being arrested in England and Scotland for putting up flags or wearing them on their clothes. Waving the national flag is somehow considered an insult to immigrants. This show of patriotism must be stopped and the miscreants arrested.

These arrests do more than crush free speech. They also deter free assembly, or at least they are intended to do so, if that assembly opposes government policy. But the right to assemble peacefully to protest government policy is the very essence of a functioning democracy.

The connection between speech and assembly is often overlooked, but it is crucially important. It is free assembly – mass crowds, mobilized around political demands – that threaten governments. That is why the two rights, speech and assembly, are paired in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. That is why their absence in English law is so devastating. Their absence gives free rein to a repressive government. That is exactly what is happening now in England and Scotland.

The right to speak openly and assemble freely, allow citizens to voice their opinions, demonstrate the intensity of those views, protest some government policies and advocate others, and express those opinions without seeking permission from the very government they may be contesting.

The British, who have no written constitution or bill of rights, give no such protections to their citizens, either in theory or in practice. That is why today’s repressive governments can treat citizens like subjects, to be suppressed or arrested when they say something objectionable to those in power. What is objectionable? We in power will decide. Not you.

It is a special tragedy to see this repression take place in England, the fountainhead of free speech and assembly in western civilization. The theory was best stated in John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty (1859), with roots that run back two centuries to John Locke and still further to the Glorious Revolution and Magna Carta. Mill’s vital points are that ideas need to withstand the test of counter-arguments and best evidence, that multiple views need to be heard and tested, and that citizens can then reach their own, informed judgments.

The wisdom of Mill’s analysis was not limited to his book or the scholarly discourse it prompted. It was already embedded in Parliamentary debate, public speeches, and the free publication of newspapers and magazines.

This open discourse is a magnificent achievement and a historically rare one. Few countries have ever permitted it, and it is in jeopardy now in the very birthplace of these freedoms, trampled by ignorant and malign political leaders. It’s easy to see why those in power don’t want to hear opposing voices or critical tweets. They don’t say so plainly, of course. They prefer to wrap themselves in the high-flying moral language of “social justice.” Whatever the justification, they use the full repressive weight of state power to smash alternative views. They alone decide which views are permissible.

They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this power grab – this blatant suppression of basic democratic rights. Politicians, bureaucrats, and police shouldn’t decide what can be said and what must be silenced. Not in a free country. They shouldn’t be allowed to turn the birthplace of liberty into its charnel house.