Audi Alteram Partem – Motto of the Free Speech Union

by John M. Joyce

Toby Young

The motto is in Latin and it means ‘Listen to the other side’.

The U.K. suffers just as much as anywhere else from self-righteous prigs who go out of their way to impose censorship on opinions that they personally find distasteful for whatever spurious reason they can dream up.

‘No platforming’ and ‘cancelling’ is just as rife in Britain as in other countries but what is worse is that the police can ruin anyone’s career, indeed their life, simply by recording a ‘non-crime hate incident’ against their name. This Orwellian concept was invented by the Police College and put into practice by the police themselves.

The U.K. Parliament did not authorise it, nor has it ever been discussed in Parliament, but it is used by the police as if it is settled law. Currently, it is being challenged in the courts but since the judges in most courts, and, in particular, in the Supreme Court, have revealed themselves to be radically and extremely left of centre the chances of this challenge succeeding are practically none.

In the northern part of the U.K. the situation is very much worse as the Scottish National Party (S.N.P.) forms the Scottish self-styled Government (in reality The Scottish Executive) and it colludes with the police and the courts to censor anything that they deem to be ‘unacceptable’. Once in charge the S.N.P. combined and centralised all of Scotland’s police forces into one unit under the S.N.P’s. political control and, as a result, the move to suppress free speech in all its forms is well underway in North Britain.

Somebody who suffered from the effects of the ranting ‘woke’ thugs is Toby Young and he has set up the Free Speech Union to help in the fight against them. What he wants the Union to do is outlined in the following bullet points that I’ve lifted straight from the Union’s website:

•If you find yourself being targeted by a digital outrage mob on social media for having exercised your legal right to free speech, we will mobilise an army of supporters.

•If a petition is launched calling for you to be fired, when you’ve done nothing other than exercise your legal right to free speech, we’ll organise a counter-petition.

•If you’re no-platformed by a university—a feminist professor who challenges trans orthodoxy, for instance—we’ll encourage you to go to law and organise a crowdfunding campaign to pay your costs.

•If newspaper columnists and broadcasting pundits start attacking you for dissenting from orthodox views and opinions, we could get our allies in the media to come to your defence.

•If you’re punished by your employer because you’ve exercised your lawful right to free speech, we’ll do our best to provide you with legal assistance.

I commend the Free Speech Union to you. I am going to join. I think it’s a brave attempt to counteract the pernicious stupidity of the idiotic ‘woke’, and often violent, ruffians and gangsters who are hell bent on destroying free speech and civilised debate – and, in reality, civilised behaviour of all types.

You can find the website of the Free Speech Union at https://freespeechunion.org/ . Support it if you can, please.