Britain has a problem with free speech. The exploration of difficult ideas is being discouraged in the very places we would expect to see it flourish: our universities and the traditionally progressive spheres of the arts and publishing – areas that exist to expand knowledge and encourage debate, not shut it down. Even science is not immune. Research is suppressed if its conclusions are uncomfortable, books are sanitised or not published at all and academics are bullied out of their institutions. A creeping censorship has captured Britain’s liberal establishment. But the new government doesn’t seem to recognise there’s a problem.
One of Labour’s earliest decisions in power was to put on hold a law that would have forced universities to promote and defend free speech on campus and deal with disputes quickly. The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 received royal assent in May last year, but was due to come into force in August 2024. Defending the government’s move to stall its implementation, the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, argued that the duties required of the act were “disproportionate, burdensome and damaging to the welfare of students while not addressing hate speech on campuses”. Higher education sources told me that a number of university vice-chancellors had lobbied for a pause in the act’s implementation in part because they were concerned about putting off overseas students (and the money they bring).
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