The Free Speech Union

Using freedom of information requests, the Free Speech Union has been investigating the transgender policies of various public sector bodies, but the document released by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s privacy watchdog, is one of the most egregious we have found. The story was carried by the Daily Mail and it's where we begin our episode today. Included among a series of bulleted suggestions, the guidance states that “ICO staff can support trans colleagues or individuals who are transitioning by… thinking of the person as the being the gender that they want you to think of them as.” Toby Young, our general secretary, is quoted in the article, “The ICO is supposed to be responsible for protecting people’s privacy. How can it be taken seriously in that role if it’s dictating to its employees what they can and can’t think?” For the second half of our discussion, we come back to the issue of misinformation via Andreas Krieg’s new book, “Subversion: the strategic weaponization of narratives” and an interesting review of the book entitled, “When does the truth become disinformation?” can be found here. We link the way that powerful actors like to control the narrative with the recent ITV drama on the Post Office scandal. The success of this piece of television, which for once fully deserves the moniker ‘landmark’, and its effect in arousing the indignation of a nation serves to emphasise – in a positive way – several of the points made in Krieg’s book. ‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

It’s been a very exciting start to 2024 at the Free Speech Union where we have been celebrating one of our biggest ever wins, the case of FSU member Carl Borg-Neal. At least £500,000 in damages is now expected to be paid out to Carl by his former employer, Lloyds Bank. As reported in The Telegraph, an employment tribunal has unanimously ruled Carl’s dismissal unfair after he inadvertently used (and immediately apologised for using) the ‘n-word’ during the bank’s race education training. FSU general secretary, Toby Young, said over the weekend that “the financial compensation Carl has secured is ground-breaking. But in addition, the Tribunal made various recommendations that Lloyds will have to follow. Senior members of the bank, including members of the Board, have been ordered to read and digest the judgment, learning, if they did not appreciate it already, that context is everything when deciding whether to dismiss someone for breaching a workplace speech code. The bank also has to inform the Financial Conduct Authority that it got this one wrong – they have to tell the regulator that their dismissal of Carl was substantially and procedurally unfair and an act of disability discrimination. Finally, they must correct their internal records and provide a reference for Carl to future employers”. While most of today’s episode is spent discussing this fantastic win, we also touch on the rather more sobering news that Camden Council is now putting potential suppliers through McCarthy-esque interrogation of their stance on LGBT dogma. Our Communications Officer, Freddie Attenborough, has written a great piece covering the issue in The Critic. Finally, we want to let all listeners know that “That’s Debatable!” is now being published directly onto the Apple podcast app, in addition to all the other popular podcast platforms. "That's Debatable!" is edited by Jason Clift.

Happy New Year to all our listeners! We begin with some good news from the Spectator. An article penned by Fraser Nelson, the magazine’s editor, reveals the pressure he came under to cancel Professor Karol Sikora’s appearance at a panel discussion on Britain’s cancer crisis. As Fraser explains, the event sponsor, which had been teed up to contribute £25,000, was concerned that the professor did not align with its “values”. It is heartening that there are still media outlets standing for free expression, even when that means losing money (in this instance, sufficient money to keep a staffer employed for a year). We move on to discuss the FSU’s submissions to two consultations on diversity and inclusion. They closed in December and were initiated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) respectively. Listeners will not be surprised to hear that we expressed our firm opposition to the proposals. We are concerned that they would further suppress free speech in the workplace, a real effect that we have seen repeatedly in our case work. We round off this first episode of 2024 with a look back at the final two FSU events of 2023, our Christmas comedy night, and the FSU annual Christmas review. “That’s Debatable!” is edited by Jason Clift.

For our final episode of 2023 we zoom in on the higher education sector, where the Office for Students has just published proposals on its complaints process under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. As reported in The Independent, universities, colleges and student unions in England which fail to uphold free speech duties are set to be named publicly and may also find themselves having to pay compensation to successful complainants. Professor Arif Ahmed’s inaugural speech as the first ever Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom is well worth reading in full and sets the tone for how we might expect the new legislation to be applied. We take the opportunity to remind ourselves of the FSU’s own higher education statistics, cases which have emerged out of some of Britain’s most esteemed institutions. Finally, we review a selection of the individual free speech cases in the higher education sector, many of which owe their success to the launch earlier this year of the Mactaggart programme. We wish our listeners a very Happy Christmas and a 2024 full of free expression. "That's Debatable!" is edited by Jason Clift.