The Main Web Site:
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Hi,
PLEASE NOTE:

it is my custom/format to post material which I have written in Black script
& that which others have written, including media in Blue, where possible.

This newsletter from the FSU is published in Black, not to mislead you but to make it as easy as possible to follow for you.

To further assist you there is a continuous Black line to the left for the whole of The FSU Newsletter – I hope this helps.

Welcome to the FSU’s monthly newsletter. As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join and help us turn the tide against cancel culture.

FSU locks in arrangement with criminal lawyer in wake of social media arrests Welcome to the 4,000 (!) new members who’ve joined the FSU in the wake of the government’s recent clamp down on free speech. We’re also immensely grateful to several hundred new donors, many of whom have left us comments that underline the unease, the anger, the fear and the sense of loss around free speech. Their concerns are well justified. In the wake of the civil unrest that spread across the UK following the murder of three children in Southport, Sir Keir Starmer was quick to blame social media for whipping up violence, and urged the authorities to prosecute people for saying supposedly inflammatory things online. As a result, a man who has been sent to jail for 18 months for sharing something “offensive” that someone else said on Facebook, another man was sent down for three years for posting “anti-Establishment rhetoric” (among other things) and a third man was jailed for 18 months for chanting “Who the f*** is Allah?”. Then there’s the woman we’ve offered to defend after she was arrested and held in custody for 36 hours for wrongly identifying the Southport attacker as an asylum seeker on X. This was in spite of the fact that she added the caveat “if this is true” and deleted the tweet when she discovered it wasn’t. She hasn’t been charged yet, but she’s a member of the FSU and if she is we will pay for her defence. Stephen Parkinson, the Director of Public Prosecutions, has even warned that police officers are now scouring the internet, searching for people who shared footage of the riots online with a view to prosecuting them. “People might think they’re not doing anything harmful, they are, and the consequences will be visited upon them,” he said. This threatening language is more reminiscent of a tin-pot dictatorship than the birthplace of parliamentary democracy and it has unleashed a wave of terror across the country, with hundreds of thousands of people now worried that they may be sent to prison for posting something un-PC online. Fear not. If you’re a member of the FSU, we’ve got your back. We’ve put in place a relationship with a criminal solicitor so that if you’re contacted by the police in connection with something you’ve said about the murder of the three schoolgirls in Southport and the subsequent unrest – either online or in real life – we’ll pay for a telephone consultation with him or someone from his firm about your case. At our discretion, we may also pay for a solicitor to attend a police interview, as well as further legal work on your case, including your entire defence. You can find the number to call in previous weekly newsletters from August. If you’re worried about things you’ve posted – or reposted – on social media and haven’t been contacted by the police, check out the FAQs we’ve published in which we summarise the law in England and Wales as it applies to online speech, with some examples of what might get you into trouble. You’ll need to log in as a member in order to access it. And if you’re an FSU supporter, but not yet a member, now might be a good time to join so you too can enjoy these benefits – you can find out more here. FSU writes to Home Secretary over prejudicial “criminals” tweet I’ve written to the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to complain about a post on the official Home Office X account describing the people who’ve been arrested in connection with the recent rioting as “criminals”, even though some of them haven’t been charged yet and some of those who have been charged have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial. (The Telegraph covered the story here). As I pointed out in my letter to Ms Cooper, the Home Office’s post risks committing a false communications offence under section 179 of the Online Safety Act 2023 since she must know that not all of those arrested are “criminals” and her tweet will have caused those who have been arrested, but not yet charged, or those who’ve been charged, but have pleaded not guilty, psychological harm since they will now assume the presumption of innocence won’t be extended to them. Then, of course, there’s the fact that if a journalist described an individual who has been arrested or charged but not yet admitted guilt, or is awaiting trial, as a “criminal” they would risk being in contempt of court and could be sent to prison. Given these concerns, I’ve asked the Home Office to delete the post in question, post an apology and a correction, and clarify that individuals who have been arrested in connection with the recent disturbances but who have not yet been charged, or have been charged by have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial, are not “criminals” and affirming that the presumption of innocence will be extended to them. You can read my letter here. FSU threatens legal action over Labour’s plan to beef up NCHI reporting No sooner had the ink dried on that letter to the Home Secretary, than it became clear I would need to write another, this time putting her on notice that if she goes ahead with a plan to force police officers to record more ‘non-crime hate incidents’ (NCHIs) and, as a result, the police end up acting unlawfully, we will take legal action. According to a Home Office source quoted in the Telegraph: “The Home Office has committed to reverse the decision of the previous government to downgrade the monitoring of antisemitic and Islamophobic hate, at a time when rates of those incidents have increased.” “It is vital,” the source added, “that the police can capture data relating to non-crime hate incidents when it is proportionate and necessary to do so in order to help prevent serious crimes which may later occur.” The source appears to be unaware that the reason the threshold for the recording and retention of NCHIs was raised by the previous government was to bring the practice into line with the Court of Appeal’s judgment in Miller v The College of Policing, and not because the then Home Secretary Suella Braverman was less concerned about “antisemitic and Islamophobic ‘hate speech’” than her successor. According to the Court of Appeal, the manner in which NCHIs were being recorded and retained when the threshold was lower – and the operational guidance police forces were following – was a breach of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as brought into British law by the Human Rights Act 1998, as well as a breach of the Data Protection Act 2018. As I pointed out in my letter to Ms Cooper – which was jointly signed by me and Harry Miller, who successfully brought a case against Humberside Police and the College of Policing for recording an NCHI against him – I’m concerned that if the statutory Code of Practice introduced by the last government is withdrawn, which appears to be Ms Cooper’s intention, and the College of Policing is once again given a free hand when it comes to drawing up operational guidance relating to NCHIs, police forces in England and Wales will start breaking the law again. As an organisation, we’re not prepared to stand by while this Labour Government takes us back to the bad old days when the subjective perception of ‘hatred’ was enough to have your name and address logged in a police database. For the avoidance of doubt, ‘non-crime hate incidents’ really are as Orwellian as they sound – if one is recorded against your name it can show up on an enhanced criminal records check and prevent you from getting a job. That’s right, you might not get a job because you’ve committed a ‘non-crime’. The FSU’s Senior Communications Officer, Freddie Attenborough, has written more about the risks posed to free speech by the threatened return of perception-based NCHIs here. If you’re on X, we’ve also put together a thread detailing some of the most egregious NCHIs among the 250,000+ the police in England and Wales have logged since 2014. You can read about our threat to sue the Home Secretary in the Sun and the Telegraph. Help save the Freedom of Speech Act We’ve sent a pre-action protocol letter to the Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, threatening a judicial review if she doesn’t reverse her decision to smother the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. (In one of the rare moments this month when I wasn’t writing to a Government minister to warn them against infringing people’s speech rights, I spoke about our legal case on GB News with Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg – you can watch a clip here.) This was a carefully crafted piece of legislation, properly debated in both Houses of Parliament, and designed to address the free speech crisis in English universities. Having received cross-party support during the last Parliament, its most important clauses were due to be commenced on 1st August. Now, because Rishi Sunak called an election before the Act had been fully implemented, the Education Secretary has seized her chance to derail it. In our letter (which you can read here), we set out why we think Ms Phillipson’s decision not to commence the Act was ultra vires. The fact that Ms Phillipson is now subject to a “duty of candour”, which requires that she disclose any documents showing the basis for her decision to torpedo the Act, has already yielded some interesting findings. According to the response we got from the Government Legal Department, Ms Phillipson shelved the Act in part because British Universities wanted to protect their relationships with authoritarian states such as China. Apparently, “concerns” had been raised with the Education Secretary about the “consequences for delivering English higher education in foreign countries which have restrictions on free speech”. We believe this is a reference to the fact that several English universities have campuses in authoritarian countries like China, where free speech isn’t respected. Over the past few weeks, Ms Phillipson and various anonymous ‘Labour sources’ have been all too happy to brief the media with a smorgasbord of highly dubious assertions, all of which they say guided the Government’s decision to torpedo the Act: it was the “Tories’ hate speech” charter, we were told; it would lead to costly and frivolous legal action; it would be damaging for vulnerable minorities, etc. Oddly enough, concerns about English universities jeopardising their cozy relationship with the People’s Republic of China and other, similarly unsavoury regimes around the world if they were forced by UK law to uphold free speech were never mentioned. We intend to fight this wanton act of vandalism with everything we’ve got. If the decision is allowed to stand, it will become virtually impossible for students and academics to defend their free speech on campus. If you can, please donate to our legal crowdfunder and help meet some of the costs of our impending legal battle. You can donate by clicking here. The War Against the Past – tickets now available On Thursday 12th September we are delighted to be hosting the launch of the latest book by Professor Frank Furedi. In The War Against the Past: Why the West Must Fight for its History, Furedi mounts a fierce defence of the history of the West and calls for a fight back against the delegitimization of its ideals and accomplishments. The book explains how the war against the past seeks to cleanse our language, culture and collective memory of that which is deemed ‘outdated’, whether that’s the word ‘mother’ or Winston Churchill. Joining him to discuss his analysis will be the historian, Jonathan Clark. Full information and tickets, along with a link to pre-order the book at a specially discounted price, can be found here. Labour’s all-out war on free speech – take action We are now eight weeks into the Labour Government and everything we’ve seen so far suggests that Sir Keir Starmer’s attitude to free speech has changed significantly since this interview he gave in 2013 as Director of Public Prosecutions when he warned that too many prosecutions of people for social media posts would inhibit freedom of expression. You can watch me on GB News discussing the speed and scale of Sir Keir’s assault on free speech, which has surprised even his staunchest critics here. First, there was the announcement in the King’s Speech that Labour would be bringing forward a “full, trans inclusive ban on conversion practices”, which we think will mean that parents and health professionals who try to talk troubled adolescents out of having life-changing medical procedures will face prosecution. Then there was the torpedoing of the Freedom of Speech Act. Then we had Sir Keir encouraging the authorities to imprison people who’d merely said something about the recent disturbances on social media. Then we had Yvette Cooper announcing she wants the police to record even more non-crime hate incidents. Now the Government is threatening to strengthen the already draconian Online Safety Act 2023 and require social media platforms to censor perfectly lawful online speech that Cabinet ministers decide is ‘harmful’. Some of the other risks that may soon materialise include a Westminster version of the Scottish Hate Crime Act, the criminalisation of ‘Islamophobia’, plans to categorise ‘misogyny’, as defined by Yvette Cooper, as a form of extremism, a Race Equality Act that will embed Critical Race Theory across workplaces and an attempt to force newspapers and magazines to bend the knee to a state-controlled press regulator. Needless to say, the FSU will fight all of these attacks on free speech. That’s why it’s so important that you should become a member of the FSU if you’re not already. You can do that by clicking here. You can also donate to our legal Fighting Fund and help meet some of the costs of our impending legal battle(s) with the Labour Government by clicking here. And if you’re as concerned as I am about Sir Keir’s assault on free speech, please use our campaigning tool to write to your local MP, using our template letter. You can find it here. Completing the form is a simple, fast process that can have a significant impact. We’ve even provided a template to help, but feel free to personalise it. Your voice matters and it’s vital that you make it heard. Almut Gadow – show your support FSU member and former law lecturer Dr Almut Gadow joined Andrew Doyle on GB News to discuss the ordeal of beings sacked from the Open University for the ‘crime’ of questioning requirements to embed gender identity ideology in the university’s law curriculum (here). At the FSU we’ve seen some pretty appalling examples of people getting into trouble for questioning attempts to erase the category of biological sex from public life, but this is one of the most egregious. Dr Gadow is fighting back but urgently needs your support to continue her potentially groundbreaking legal case against her ex-employer, claiming harassment, discrimination and unfair dismissal. If you can, please show your support here. Does publishing have a freedom of expression problem? Join us on Monday 14th October to celebrate the publication of a new book by award-winning poet and essayist Jenny Lindsay. In Hounded: Women, Harms and the Gender Wars, Jenny offers a detailed account of the culture of ‘hounding’ that those accused of holding heretical beliefs have experienced, many of them writers including herself.  The book is described by philosopher Kathleen Stock, who really was ‘hounded out’ of academia, as a “shocking compendium”. Jenny will discuss the issues in the publishing world with literary agent Matthew Hamilton and Orwell prize-winning author Kate Clanchy. Tickets are available here; FSU members can also join online using the link provided in our weekly emails. There will, of course, be plenty of time for an audience Q and A. The discussion will be followed by a book-signing and an opportunity to have a drink with likeminded people. Thanet District Council quashes PSPO following FSU intervention We scored another important legal victory in our ongoing campaign against speech-restricting Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs), when Thanet District Council quashed a “too vague and too broad” PSPO following our threat of legal action – we opposed the order on the grounds it could prevent a person’s right to protest peacefully. Cabinet members made the decision following recommendations by the Overview and Scrutiny Panel that the Council’s proposed Alcohol and Antisocial Behaviour PSPO be re-considered. The decision to proceed with the PSPO was called in for review by Thanet District Council’s scrutiny panel after the chair, Cllr Phil Fellows, received our letter under the pre-action protocol for judicial review. This order is a draconian measure, which would have applied to the entire built-up area around the Thanet coastline, restricting the freedom of expression of 130,000 residents plus the roughly four million tourists who visit the district each year. People within the area covered would be fined and could face a criminal conviction for “causing a disturbance to others” or being “pejorative” in public, among other things. It effectively imposes a strict liability speech offence, with none of the safeguards which Parliament and the courts have deemed necessary when restricting people’s fundamental rights and liberties. As we pointed out in our letter to the Council, the PSPO is unlawful for a number of reasons: it is so irrational that no reasonable public authority could have arrived at the decision they did; it exceeds the powers granted to the council by Parliament; and it represents an impermissible interference with the right to freedom of speech under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Find out more here. This victory in Thanet follows our two previous successes, persuading Redbridge and Cumberland councils to back down from making PSPOs which would have unlawfully restricted the speech rights of their residents – find out more here. Academic freedom under threat at Cambridge University An early career Research Fellow at Cambridge University has had his affiliation with Emmanuel College terminated over a controversial blog post he wrote about race and IQ. With our support, Dr Nathan Cofnas is challenging his termination, which we believe creates a dangerous precedent. Academics should be free to pursue controversial and unpopular areas of research without fear of losing their livelihoods. Now he needs your help. If you can, please donate to Dr Cofnas’s legal crowdfunder and help him challenge his dismissal. Second Belfast Speakeasy – tickets now available Join us at the historic Crumlin Road Gaol on Friday 20th September for the FSU’s second Northern Ireland Speakeasy and the launch of its Northern Ireland Advisory Council. In-person tickets are available via our website. We will be discussing how we can best help our Northern Irish members defend their right to freedom of expression, particularly given that the NI Department of Justice is poised to bring forward a Hate Crime and Public Order (Northern Ireland) Bill and is proposing to repeal the ‘dwelling defence’, whereby someone can’t be prosecuted for stirring up hatred in the privacy of their own home. Another item on the agenda will be two ongoing, Belfast-focused cases we’re supporting (here and here), both of which involve the targeting of women’s rights activists for their gender critical beliefs. Our panel for the evening includes FSU General Secretary Toby Young, Baroness Kate Hoey, the Director of the Women’s Rights Network Heather Binning, solicitor advocate Simon Chambers and the journalist, historian and crime novelist Ruth Dudley Edwards. FSU writes to Bank of England over gender ideology promoting staff training I’ve written to the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, to express concern about its ‘Trans Inclusion’ diversity training, which describes expressing the belief in the biological reality of sex as a “microaggression”. (The Telegraph covered the story here.) Having reviewed the content of this course, we were shocked that such politically contentious material had been promoted by a public body like the Bank of England which, through the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), is responsible for supervising the whole of the UK’s financial sector. Our primary concern is that the ‘Trans Inclusion’ course appears to promote gender identity ideology while stigmatising gender critical beliefs, which are protected under the Equality Act 2010. In my letter (which you can read here), I urge the Bank of England to retract those elements of the training course that promote gender identity ideology, affirm its employees’ right to express gender critical views without being punished, and ensure that any future diversity training courses are genuinely inclusive. We’ve written more about the case here. Battle of Ideas Festival – tickets now available We are delighted to once again partner up with the Battle of Ideas Festival, taking place in Westminster on the weekend of the 19th and 20th October. If you’ve never been before, it’s well worth attending. Hundreds of sessions, thousands of attendees, brilliant speakers. The FSU will be there all weekend, so come and say hello at our stall, and we will be hosting our own session on the future of academic freedom on the Saturday. There will be many more free speech-related sessions across the weekend and a social on Saturday night. The full programme will be published in coming weeks, but for early birds, FSU Members can get a 20% discount off all tickets by using the link featured in previous weekly newsletters from August. The programme is here and sessions and speakers are being added by the day. Those who have been before will know that during September and early October, the schedule becomes packed with well-known faces addressing all the hottest topics. Sharing the newsletter As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join, and help us turn the tide against cancel culture. You can share our newsletters on social media with the buttons below to help us spread the word. If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here. Kind regards, Toby Young Follow us on social media Join Our Community Become a Member Make a Donation Our mailing address is: The Free Speech Union 85, Great Portland Street London, W1W 7LT Copyright © 2024 Free Speech Union Ltd. All rights reserved. Newsletter Preferences You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

I do hope you have found this newsletter of interest – I would encourage you to go to The FSU WebSite

https://freespeechunion.org/

I strongly recommend joining the FSU as increasingly YOU are at risk of some dishonest individual pretending to be offended by what you say or do – many such corrupt individuals make fraudulent claims for financial gain or WOKE, Politically Correct notoriety – all too often setting out to try to prevent YOUR freedom of Speech and opinion.

Regards,

Greg_L-W..

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Greg Lance – Watkins
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Climate Change
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Regarding TWITTER:
https://twitter.com/Greg_LW

From 04-Jul-2022 until Early December 2022:
I was banned from TWITTER.
Allegedly I have broken a TWITTER Rule,
But, Seemingly they lacked the integrity or competence
to identify the rule!
PRESUMABLY I told the Truth or Used a fact
that did not suit their corrupt WOKE agenda,
bias or propaganda! AT THE TIME!

As the corrupt & biased owners no longer use their lies,
bias & propaganda on Twitter to Un-platform People
& it is no longer owned & managed by them
as Elon Musk has purchased the platform:
I have rejoined by deleting
my provably accurate
Tweet:
TWITTER BAN 04-July-2022

Remove Tweet

Tweet 1 of 1

Violating one of our Rules.

Greg_Lance-Watkins
@Greg_LW

They sexualise children as young as 5 at school. But #Prince_Andrew paid £12M for NOT having intercourse with a minor &; #Ghislaine got 20yrs. but not a single #Epstein client has been charged, let alone prosecuted! https://t.co/ckGbEMFxVf

Jul 4, 2022, 12:00 PM

By clicking Remove, you are removing the content of your Tweet and all other edited versions of the tweet, and forgoing the option to appeal this violation. Please note that the original content will be replaced with a notice stating your Tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules. This notice will be accessible via direct URL and via your profile timeline for 14 days. Learn more.

If you feel that your account has been locked in error, you can appeal by contacting our support team here.

PLEASE NOTE:
Every part of the Tweet is a provable FACT,
the truth seems not to have been popular –
Let us hope Elon Musk’s ownership will lead to greater integrity on Twitter!

DO BEWARE of AI :
A Friend Recently entered my name in an AI Search Engine:
Apparently Greg Lance-Watkins
Was recently found guilty of a double homicide
in Tennessee, USA.
I was last in America in December 1979,
I am not, nor have I ever been in Court
or prison in America!