Do you enjoy having the right to speak your mind? To state the facts, regardless of who is discomfited by the truth? To say what's on your mind, without worry about some bureaucrat or apparatchik threatening you with legal consequences?
Our founders saw fit to enshrine freedom of speech in the very first item of the Bill of Rights, and there's a reason for that; they had just gone through a conflict with a global empire, against people who would have hanged them for an angry stump speech against the King. But that right, like so many of our rights, is drawing the disapproving gaze of the left. And, as is so alarmingly often the case, all we need to do is look at the remnants of that global empire I just mentioned, at the United Kingdom, for an example of what the left would do to free speech here, were they able.
It all begins with David Craig, an online activist, author, and columnist for the Daily Sceptic. He routinely writes things that displease the British government, and he's being digitally squashed.
I’m sure we were all very proud of our PM when he informed Donald Trump that we’ve had free speech in Britain for a long time and that we would continue to have free speech in the future. But that hasn’t been my recent experience. Moreover I suspect that many other people are also falling foul of what appears to be an increasing climate of censorship of any views which contradict the official Government narrative.
I’ve had a YouTube video channel for more than eight years without ever having had any problems. I have used my channel to post occasional videos usually based on my current affairs books. So I’ve covered subjects such as Gordon Brown’s financial incontinence, foreign aid waste, our bloated charity industry, ever-rising knife crime in London, the pointlessness of many university degrees and, most recently, the supposed ‘Global Boiling Climate Crisis’.
Let's call a spade a freaking shovel and acknowledge that free speech as such no longer exists in the United Kingdom. Mr. Craig continues:
In the last couple of months I made three short parody videos mocking three members of Keir Starmer’s Government – Starmer himself, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves. A week or so ago I tried to upload a fourth video onto YouTube mocking Ed Miliband’s ludicrous Net Zero assault on our country. But I was unable to upload my latest video as YouTube had taken down my whole video channel. So now none of my videos, even those which have been live on YouTube for years, are available. Helpfully YouTube informed me that I could appeal against their decision to ban me and remove all my videos. But, in a rather Kafkaesque situation, I’m not told why I have been banned. The only information I got was a link to all the many reasons why YouTube could remove a video channel. This made it somewhat difficult to appeal against YouTube’s ban as I’ve no idea what violation I am alleged to have committed. However, I did appeal and my appeal was quickly rejected again without any reason being given.
Now, YouTube, part of the Google octopus, is a private company and may presumably refuse service to anyone, as they see fit. But one has to wonder why, especially when some of Mr. Craig's videos had been in place, as he notes, for years.
But it gets worse.
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In Britain, right now, there is a steady increase of people actually being arrested for "speech-related offenses." In 2023, the most recent year for which good numbers are available, around 12,000 people were arrested for social media posts. People in the United Kingdom can be arrested for "Malicious Communications." Now, that sounds nasty, and it sure can be; in this line of work, I get my share of hate mail, which gets laughed at and deleted. But the UK will also plop you in the pokey for "fake news," which may be no more than expressing an opinion.
Case in point: A business owner from Chester, Bernadette Spofforth, spent 36 hours in jail for a social media post she maintains contained a "slight inaccuracy," and which she deleted in a matter of hours. Her crime? Speculating that one of the hordes of "asylum seekers" pouring into Britain may have been responsible for the murder of three young girls.
About 30 people a day are arrested in the United Kingdom for "speech infractions." The law that allows these arrests is the "Online Safety Act."
Passed under Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government, the Online Safety Act was designed to compel technology companies to remove harmful online content or face multi-billion-pound fines. But alongside its regulation of social media platforms, the Act also created new criminal offences, including cyberflashing, the distribution of so-called “revenge porn”, and, more controversially, the criminalisation of “illegal false communications”, a provision widely referred to as a “fake news” offence.
False communications? Deemed false by whom? This seems to be a hole one could drive a truck through.
David Craig's experience is growing more common. So is Bernadette Spofforth's experience. This is what the American left would have happen here. The nutbar left thinks this is a good idea, and they don't give an ounce of rodent excrement what the First Amendment has to say about it. This is just one of many, many reasons we can't allow the left to grab all the levers of power again.
Let Britain be our warning.
