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UK government suppressing free speech: nothing less than scandalous

I have mixed feelings about Milo Yiannopoulos, but the notion that representatives of Her Majesties Government have pressured Simon Langton Grammar School in Canterbury into cancelling a speech by him on grounds of ‘extremism‘ is tantamount to a declaration of war on freedom of expression.

There needs to be push-back because this is scandalous.

Push back how? Names need to be named. Exactly who at the Department for Education was behind this? Who did Headmaster Matthew Baxter speak with? Names please. And who ordered those functionaries to contact the headmaster and press him into cancelling this event? Names please, because their reasoning needs to be subject to scrutiny.

Update: very interesting local article reporting on this. Once you get away from the London based media, you are more likely to find journalism that does not reflexively kowtow to the BBC/Guardian orthodoxy.

34 comments to UK government suppressing free speech: nothing less than scandalous

  • I like Milo precisely because of whom he is upsetting.

  • QET

    Maybe a better starting point would be to name the names of all those responsible for the establishment of a “counter-extremism unit” in the government.

  • Cal

    Will be very amusing if Milo then becomes Trump’s press secretary! (Don’t suppose he will, but there are rumours…)

    The Conservatives seem to be the UK outpost of the US Democrat party (see, eg. Hague’s comments about Trump this morning).

  • Milo is marvelous – I disagree with quite a lot of things he says but he says them with such panache I always enjoy listening.
    Besides, I disagree with quite a lot of everything I hear from every source, including Samizdata 😈
    When I first learned of this in the local paper (ok, on the local paper’s website) I was hoping to go but it was going to be closed to the public.

  • mike

    As the word “extreme” is simply an adjective without reference to any standard until applied to one, so a “counter-extremism unit” within the central government can only be, in both name and function, a deliberate nonsense intended to impeach effective criticism whilst concealing any objective standard, precept or principle against which “extremism” could be measured, thus impeding further criticism.

    It’s advanced Orwellian bullshit.

  • Hedgehog

    mike: It’s advanced Orwellian bullshit.

    Precisely. It’s the establishment characterizing as extreme everything that they don’t like so that they can ban it whenever they feel like it.

  • mike

    Hedgehog: agree completely. As Ecksy over at Worstall’s place likes to say – purge.

  • RRS

    As Perry notes, everything is done by people, individual humans, with motivations, often acting in common. So much is obscured by “the representatives of . . .” or similar denotations that hide motivations.

    Yes indeed – WHO, by name and position AND motive.

  • PersonFromPorlock

    The individual who knows who is doubtless on a month’s vacation trip down the Zambezi even as we speak. When he returns, it will be three more months before anyone remembers to ask him, whereupon he will deny all knowledge and suggest checking with Smith, who will prove to have just died.

    Hence my proposed general rule for determining organizational responsibility: if no responsibility for an act can be determined, it defaults to the person in charge at the level where things become muddled. It does not simply disappear with a shrug.

  • I wrote to the school in protest, and asked them who pressured them 🙂

  • llamas

    HMG suppressing free speech? Say it ain’t so. 😮

    The UK (people and government) haven’t understood the concept of free speech for several generations now. Stories like this are a big yawn anymore, because in truth, this sort of suppression of free speech is business-as-usual in the UK. The only reason it got reported at all is that Milo is a newsworthy character in his own right, and also because of his connection to Trump. Note that nobody even bothers to counter the arguments raised against his appearance, namely, that he is ‘guilty’ of ‘hate speech’, and that his appearance should be cancelled due to threats of demonstrations.

    Suppression of speech like this is now completely normal and unremarkable in the UK – it’s now to the point where the suppression doesn’t even have to be expressly-performed, as it was here – everybody knows that this sort of thing won’t be allowed, and so they simply self-censor. The Brits don’t even know what the concept of ‘free speech’ means anymore.

    llater,

    llamas

  • The Brits don’t even know what the concept of ‘free speech’ means anymore.

    Really? I could have sworn I was a Brit. As is Milo. There really is no such things as “the Brits”, mate.

  • llamas

    Well, it was a convenient shorthand, but since it has given unintended offence, for which I apologize, I will rephrase.

    For

    ‘the Brits’

    please read

    ‘The vast majority of individual Britons, as well as all arms of state, political and executive power . . . ‘

    llater,

    llamas

  • From Kent Messenger:

    Head teacher Matthew Baxter said: “This decision was taken following contact from the Department For Education’s counter extremism unit, the threat of demonstrations at the school by organised groups and members of the public and our overall concerns for the security of the school site and the safety of our community.

    “We note that within 24 hours of advertising the event, more than 220 Langton sixth formers had, with parental consent, signed up for the event and that objection to our hosting Mr Yiannopoulus came almost entirely from people with no direct connection to the Langton.

    The Same “organised groups” that ensure violence at a large number of protests no doubt. . .

  • Philip Scott Thomas

    Has anyone else seen the picture on Guido’s site? The pic from C-Span has Milo labelled as “White House Press Secretary”.

    Yiannopolos, Stephanopoulos. Those foreign names all sound the same, I guess. 😀

  • Brian, follower of Deornoth

    I don’t think we need to worry about naming names. We can just adopt Sir Arnaud Amalric’s approach…

    Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.

  • pete

    ‘Organised groups’ like the BNP, Stormfront and the EDL will be pleased to hear of this decision.

    They can write to the government to tell them which speakers they don’t like and that they’ll cause trouble if they are allowed to speak.

  • The vast majority of individual Britons

    I do not think that is correct.

  • bobby b

    To be fair, Milo has been shut down here in the states probably twenty or more times by the exact same type of people.

    You can argue that there’s a difference between private persons working to suppress speech and the actual government doing the same, but I think it’s a distinction without difference.

    Here, Milo was shut down several times by officials of public (in the American sense) universities. Those are acts of the state.

    In other instances – one of which I attended – he was shut down by a mob, while the police stood by and refused to stop the mob. This was also an act of the state.

    So, at present, we’re no great shakes ahead of England. They have their Department of Counter-Extremism. We have the same thing, but we diffuse it across all of our government and our empowered left-wing radicals. When government colludes with extremists, it’s more pervasive that a mere government agency.

    (The articles tell us that the government gave no actual order to the school to cancel – just that the school cancelled after the government “spoke” to the school. I have no doubt that the gist of the talk was that the government told the school that it couldn’t protect the school from violent protesters. Just as here, such notification from the government to a school can, by itself, serve to defeat insurance coverage for the school should it go ahead with the event, making it near impossible for the school to hold the event. Happily for the schools, this gives them an excuse for cancellation, which they were very happy to do anyway. The Heckler’s Veto now has institutional and financial support.)

  • Paul Marks

    Milo is a bit of an odd chap in some ways. But for the government to censor him is vile – utterly vile.

  • Roué le Jour

    You can be sued for ruinously large sums of money, therefore you need insurance. This insurance can be withdrawn if you fail to take every conceivable precaution against being sued. Enjoy your free speech, comrade.

    Additionally, there is an important distinction between “Can’t protect you from x’s criminal actions” and “Will take no action against x for his criminal actions”. The former is regretable but understandable, the later is complicity.

  • haiku

    I have no (or, at best, very little) doubt that the Department for Education’s counter extremism unit were – one and all – wearing red poppies when they “spoke” to the school.

  • James Higham

    “equated feminism to cancer”

    Er yes … what’s the issue? Suppose he’s not allowed to tell the truth these days.

  • The counter-extremism unit will have been set up to prevent Imams with jihadist sympathies radicalising kids in the madrasas and mosques. They won’t actually do this of course because it’s difficult and they might be accused of racism, so to keep themselves busy and to continue their employment they go after the easy targets. Milo, being white and male, is one of them.

    It’s the same thing with the unit which was set up to tackle “Asian” child brides being brought to Britain. It wouldn’t actually tackle the problem of Pakistani girls being married off to their cousins because that would be racist, and instead they deny marriage visa requests to Japanese women who met their British fiances at Cambridge University.

  • Shlomo Maistre

    Cancer mainly harms the old.

    Feminism mainly harms the young.

    Cancer destroys individuals; feminism destroys societies.

    Feminism is worse than cancer.

  • Nike Marsh: I wrote to the school in protest, and asked them who pressured them

    Please let us know if you get a reply.

  • Andrew Duffin

    What Tim Newman said.

  • Watchman

    Hmmm. I wonder if there is a case for a Freedom of Information request here, asking for the advice given to the school in this case, and any supporting messages and paperwork. Should be easy to find (if not, someone needs to be fired), and I can’t see this being a matter of national security, or commercially sensitive, and obviously other than whoever complained there would be no personal information involved, so not sure what basis the Department of Education would have to not provide this information.

    If they have to justify their activities, then they may have to focus them.

  • dagny taggart

    All this will do is inflate Milos colossal ego, turning him into a free speech martyr.

    speaking of ‘alt right’ firebrands did anyone see richard spencers speech at the alt right conference

  • Kudos to Mike Marsh (November 21, 2016 at 5:41 pm) for taking some action.

    That said, I note (as reported by Wh00ps above November 21, 2016 at 6:09 pm) that “… objection to our hosting Mr Yiannopoulus came almost entirely from people with no direct connection to the Langton” (i.e. unlike the supportive 224 pupils, plus parents). If Mike also has no connection to the school, his letter is useful push back but I’d be neither too surprised nor too critical if he got no reply. It would be “the process is the punishment” tactics for Milo’s enemies to demand every venue write a reply to every sock puppet complaint.

    (BTW head teacher Matthew Baxter is at least grumbling a little about this – or so I read the full quote.)

    The good news is in the following (from memory) quote of C.S.Lewis. “The best way to make a boy read books is to forbid him – and then ensure he has plenty of opportunities to disobey you.” I’m guessing those 224 6th formers, and their friends, know about this interweb thingy.

  • Mr Ecks

    I think Roue le Jour is nearest to what happened.

    It is highly unlikely the so-called “Extremist Unit” phoned with direct threats/ demands about Milo.

    Most likely that when leftist threats were received they would ring to make it clear that neither they nor the bluebottles would be lifting a finger. “The school will be on its own when the leftists show up and after any trouble good luck with next year’s insurance premiums”.

    That is more likely the way of it than direct threats/orders.

  • Patrick Crozier

    Here is Milo being interviewed by Stefan Molyneux. I find a little to object to.

  • All this will do is inflate Milos colossal ego, turning him into a free speech martyr.

    Well he manifestly is a free speech martyr, so your point is what exactly?

    Plus I do not give a flying fuck about Spencer, we are discussing free speech in Britain here.

  • Well he manifestly is a free speech martyr, so your point is what exactly?

    Indeed, and Milo’s ego is somewhat of an act IMO. He uses a very flamboyant, egotistical manner to get attention but when he’s actually talking he’s making deadly serious points. He’s said several times that he only has this influence because he is flamboyantly gay and doesn’t give a shit, whereas others are more vulnerable to attempts to silence them or other attacks and so he feels he has a duty to do what he is able to do more than most. Good on him.