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Samizdata quote of the day I’m also currently helping out a journalist who has been arrested four times and had his equipment taken by the police – without warrants. He is accused of trolling people who he has never communicated with. But he has never been charged. It is all possible because of the hate laws. Being a politician and a Brexiteer, I could have the police fully employed arresting people who say very offensive things to me online. I would not do that. But some people do. We need a major overhaul of all this, because it has set in motion a load of events that are extremely unhealthy for democracy.
– Andrew Bridgen MP in “Why we must repeal our hate-speech laws“
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First impression is, you need a major overhaul of your police. They’ve taken sides. Isn’t that a coup?
There is zero chance the hate speech laws will be repealed. They are far too useful for political prosecutions for anyone who dares stray outside the acceptable Overton window.
The righteous will screech themselves hoarse, the BBC will explode, the Media will call everyone involved Nazis and anti-Semites, and the right will surrender displaying the usual total lack of testicular fortitude.
Quote from the piece – “We are heading for a culture war”
Has this guy been living under a rock? They’re trying to deliver Critical Race Theory courses to MP’s – the institutionalisation of an Anti-white blood libel and baking it into government policy.
The western world is careering down a slope towards oblivion in a jalopy with no brakes.
There was zero chance of UK leaving EU. And then it did.
Cameron made the fatal – for him! – decision to grant a referendum. That’s not going to happen ever again, is it! 😏
You actually think politicians learn from mistakes? 😀
That specific mistake. I suspect that they will learn from that one yes.
What they might learn is not to get into a position where there is immense pressure for a referendum.
The UK kept the pound sterling. No referendum was needed to achieve that because there was enough pressure to have one that New Labour backed down.
Whatever the chances for the repeal of these evil “laws” we must still campaign for them to be repealed.
As the old French television series “The Flashing Blade” put it – “It is better to have fought and lost, than not to have fought at all”.
+1 Paul Marks (February 1, 2021 at 11:11 pm).
Also, as Churchill advised, you are more likely to win if you recognise that you can – that the future is even less likely to be what the censors promise than it would be if they kept themselves better informed by censoring less and living less in a bubble. For example, the recent drop in EU prestige is occasionally penetrating into even the beeboid and Grauniad bubbles. The EUrocracy is powerful and has a powerful clique in this country – yet (or do I mean ‘so’) fails to control events or its PR.
Get on with it then, Andrew. You’re best placed to do it, a ‘Tory’, supporting a ‘Tory’ administration, with a substantial ‘Tory’ majority.
No time like the f*****g present!
Or are you going to be like all the rest of the Tories? All talk and no action?
APL:
Whilst Princess Nut Nuts has BoJo by the knackers, there is not much that a backbencher can do.
The fat oaf is proposing to ban the sale of petrol cars in just nine years, and acts as if electric cars and their associated infrastructure will just appear in a puff of non-polluting smoke. Magical thinking is very strong with this one.
APL – one Member of Parliament has one vote, out of over 600 votes in the House of Commons.
As a Member of Parliament Andrew Bridgen has some (some – NOT total) protection from “Central Office” – but if you think Central Office are toothless and an ordinary Conservative has nothing to fear from them, remember what they did to me. Being an active Party Member for 40 years and being an Association Chairman was no protection at all – I was not even allowed to be present at my own “trial”. I would say that, even as a Member of Parliament Andrew Bridgen has shown great personal courage – he deserves your praise, not your implied contempt. The Conservative Party has many members who support Freedom of Speech – unlike the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats (as far as I know these political parties have virtually no members that support Freedom of Speech), but it takes courage for these men and women speak out. The political system being what it is one has to work within one of the large political parties in Parliament – and I AGREE with Andrew Bridgen that the Conservative Party is the correct party in Parliament to work within, but that does not mean that it is without risks to make such a stand.
In any political system one has to work from where one is – and, in this fallen world, that is often a very imperfect place.
The article was excellent – and I certainly hope the Home Secretary supports Freedom of Speech as Andrew Bridgen says she does.
As for “all talk and no action” – it is precisely freedom to “talk” that Andrew Bridgen wants.
I observe that the party currently in power, has brought in the most totalitarian measures – I doubt even the Labour party would have considered what the Tory party has done, possible.
Furthermore, they have introduced them by virtue of enabling acts – Presumably, to deliberately avoid Parliamentary scrutiny – there being an already ( outrageous ) piece of legislation on the Statute book ( Civil Contingency act c.2004, thanks to the worm-tongue Blair). But at least that had the merit of requiring regular oversight by Parliament.
Yes, but what is he doing about it? Has he sponsored a private members bill, has he agitated in Parliament, has he voted against the Tory administration and encouraged his fellow Tories to do so too?
I don’t think so.
Our problem is that people, I guess you are one, seem for some god forsaken reason, still to have faith in the Tory party. It needs to be utterly smashed into oblivion.
It does not oppose the Labour party, rather it takes two steps back and one step forward. The Tory party is, the slow lane of the Labour party.
Vote Tory, get Trotski…
I literally could not force myself to vote Tory in 2019, even for Brexit.
I would rather vote for their complete end as a party.
Better to start again.
My problem with Mr Bridgen is that he retains the whip of the Conservative party, which as APL and ITYN point out, is (my term) a focus for evil in the modern world. I find it hard to give any credit to the bona fides of a man who adheres to the instructions of the Conservative party.
Were a Conservative MP to resign the whip in disgust, and vote his or her conscience, then we might get somewhere. Hot air may thaw the frostbitten fingers of the unfree, but it will not break the State.
It may be possible to get hate speech laws repealed, but Mr. Bridgen is going about it in exactly the wrong way. The way to get rid of unworkable rules is to make sure the people who have the power to repeal those rules are required to follow them to the letter. If hate speech laws are only applied to Brexiteers the law will never change in this respect.