Labour’s war on free speech Censorship is about to return to the campu

In light of this, it makes sense that the next step would be to ensure that dissenting views continue to be stifled in higher education. After all, the introduction of the Higher Education Act was a much-needed attempt to make sure that universities uphold freedom of speech and plurality of opinion. It requires universities to guarantee academics the freedom “to question and test received wisdom” and “to put forward controversial or unpopular opinions” without risk to their livelihoods or future job prospects. It protects visiting speakers from being disinvited for controversial views. And it demands that governing bodies formulate a Code of Practice which upholds these responsibilities, and that these are annually brought to the attention of all students. The intended effect, suffice it to say, is to cultivate a more intellectually open climate by promoting academic freedom and the importance of free speech within the law.

In a sense, it is disappointing that such ideas require legislation at all. Partly this is due to an activist contingent within academic circles that has become adept at intimidating colleagues into silence. The result has been the development of a new monoculture in higher education in which self-censorship is rife. A 2020 report, for instance, found that one in three Right-leaning scholars censor themselves “for fear of consequences to [their] career”. A further study in 2022 found that three in four conservative academics occasionally self-censored while at work.

But censorship isn’t binary, and Left-wing academics are also increasingly at risk, notably those who are sceptical about activists’ demands that the highly contested belief in “gender identity” ought to supersede biological sex in matters of public policy. As far back as 2011, Julie Bindel was officially “No Platformed” by the National Union of Students (NUS), when delegates at the LGBT conference passed a motion called “This conference believes Julie Bindle is vile”. They couldn’t even be bothered to spell her name correctly. In the decade to come, she would be joined on the list of undesirables by a number of leading feminist thinkers: Linda Bellos, Selina Todd, Kathleen Stock and Jo Phoenix, to name a few.

One of the key ways in which the Higher Education Act would address these problems is its creation of a “free speech tsar” at the Office for Students, a role until now fulfilled by Professor Arif Ahmed. Initially, part of his job was to design a “free speech complaints scheme”, whereby universities who fail in their responsibilities could be fined. There was also a “statutory tort” provision, which enabled academics who had lost their jobs for exercising their free speech to sue their universities. However, peers in the House of Lords attempted to see this aspect of the Bill jettisoned and, after it was reinstated by the Commons, a watered-down version was passed.

And now it seems that it is going to be binned in its entirety, in spite of previous cross-party support. However this situation unfolds, it should remind us that the threat to free speech is very real, and its erosion is often accelerated by those in power. The universities have been the laboratories for the creeping authoritarianism of our times, and so it seems clear that the problem needs to be tackled at the source. Only a few weeks ago, the new culture secretary Lisa Nandy was declaring that “the era of culture wars is over”. It looks, however, as though it’s only just begun.

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Andrew Doyle is a comedian and creator of the Twitter persona Titania McGrath

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