Three cheers for Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty and Emma Carr of Big Brother Watch for denouncing Theresa May’s intention to ban extremists from speaking in favour of jihad, which would remove at one blow one of our most hard-won liberties: the right to freedom of speech.
It reminds me of one of my small children saying: “Why don’t they just put all the bad men in prison and then they couldn’t do bad things?” Simply to prevent our enemies from speaking just makes us more like them. But perhaps there might be something that could be done to weaken the effects of those trying to recruit murderers.
What we want is more serious debate. It should become much more normal on some public occasions or in certain places to have not just one speaker but an opposition one putting the other side of the question. We could then build up a range of people or organisations ready to fill this slot.
Big Brother Watch already exists to campaign against restrictions on free speech, and David Davis, who spoke against “limiting rights that people have had for 200 years” might found a pressure group to counteract unchallenged speaking. I would happily join, if it existed, such a one as Efat, for example – Elderly Feminists Against Terrorism.
Rather than denying one kind of free speech, maybe we should campaign for another: the right to argue in public with any speaker we deplore.
What do you think? Have your say below
