The Death of Free Speech: Britain’s Dark Descent into Silence

The Death of Debate: How Britain’s Police Are Stopping Free Expression

When they came for the left-wing journalists, the right stayed silent. When they came for the right-wing journalists, the left contemplated their own silence. Now, as the shadows of authoritarian overreach lengthen across Britain’s once-hallowed tradition of free expression, we must ask ourselves: Who will be left to speak at all?

The recent police investigation of Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson – for the Orwellian crime of causing “offence” through social media – marks a chilling new chapter in Britain’s descent into thought-crime territory. This isn’t some mass round-up of rioters caught hurling bricks through windows at Southport or those who chose to incite violence through their social media platforms. No, this is something far more insidious – an investigation into an undefined offence, against an unnamed victim, for a crime that may not even exist. The mere accusation of causing offence has become offence enough. Kafka himself couldn’t have scripted it better: there must be a victim, therefore there must be a crime, therefore there must be a criminal. The circular logic of authoritarianism in its purest form.

Many of us have spent countless hours behind our telescreens, fingers worn from typing endless pleas for Julian Assange’s freedom. How darkly ironic that as the ink barely dries on his release papers, we find ourselves writing those same desperate words about liberty and rights for journalists across the political spectrum. The faces in Westminster may change, but the machinery of state oppression runs as smoothly as ever – Red Tories or Blue Tories, their methods remain unchanged, their goal eternally fixed: the preservation of power at any cost. They trade podiums and offices while we trade liberty for security, until we wake up one day to find we have neither.

We’ve already witnessed the detention of left-wing journalists like Sarah Wilkinson, Richard Medhurst, Asa Winstanley and Craig Murray under expansive terrorism laws. The establishment’s machinery of suppression knows no political boundaries – it seeks only to silence those who question power, regardless of their ideology.

The British left has a proud history of fighting against censorship, from the Levellers to the battle against the oppressive Combination Acts, from the Chartists to the anti-fascist movements of the 20th century. We’ve long understood that free speech isn’t just a liberal luxury – it’s the cornerstone of working-class emancipation and social progress.

Remember John Lilburne, “Freeborn John,” who in the 1640s endured whipping, pillorying, and imprisonment for the simple act of publishing unauthorised books. His crime? Daring to speak truth to power. The Levellers’ demands for free speech and press freedom were radical then – and apparently remain radical now, nearly 400 years later, as police officers interrupt a journalist’s Remembrance Sunday to investigate her tweets.

Those who celebrate the persecution of journalists they disagree with should remember the words of Noam Chomsky: “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” This isn’t about defending Pearson’s views – it’s about defending everyone’s right to express views without fear of state persecution.

It was George Orwell, that great democratic socialist and defender of truth, who warned us about this. “If liberty means anything at all,” he wrote, “it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” Yet here we are, in 2024, watching police officers operate as the “Thought Police” – though the ideology matters less than the suppression itself.

When police can knock on your door to investigate your tweets while refusing to tell you what you’re accused of, we’ve entered Kafka’s territory. When journalists must “live in fear for months without ever being told what has been said against them”, we’re no longer living in a free society – regardless of whether we agree with those journalists’ politics, or not.

Of course, many will say that she needs shutting up but when they shut us all up who says anything…

The tragedy is that this creeping authoritarianism serves the powerful by dividing natural allies against state overreach. Left and right alternatively cheer or jeer at each other’s persecution, while the machinery of suppression grinds ever onwards, crushing dissent beneath its wheels. Meanwhile, our streets grow dangerous, our children go hungry, and corporate criminals walk free – but God forbid someone posts an offensive tweet. Real crimes go uninvestigated as our police force transforms into thought police, and the public sphere withers into a desert of timid conformity.

And while our mouths are sealed shut and our protests are criminalized, accountability dies a quiet death in the shadows. We wake each morning to find ourselves wearing the very shackles our forefathers once cast off, traded for the false promise of security and the hollow comfort of not being offended. The irony would be laughable if it weren’t so terrifying – that in the name of protecting sensibilities, we’ve surrendered the hard-won liberties that generations bled to secure.

We stand at a crossroads, but the signposts are clear enough for anyone with eyes to see. We can either unite to defend the fundamental right of free expression – even for those we despise – or we can watch as Britain descends into a police state where thought crimes trump actual crimes, where offence-taking trumps truth-telling, and where the only safe speech is silence. The choice between these paths grows starker with each knock on a journalist’s door, with each “voluntary interview,” with each undefined offence against an unnamed accuser.

If history teaches us, anything once these freedoms are lost, they are regained only through struggle and sacrifice. Let us not be the generation that surrendered what Freeborn John, the Chartists, and countless others bled to secure. The time to speak is now – while we still can.

Paul Knaggs

Editor, founder, Labour Heartlands, Citizen journalist. 𝙁𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙗𝙤𝙧𝙣 𝙀𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙍𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙎𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩. Fighting a constant struggle with dyslexia that’s overcome with a burning desire to speak out against the corrupt political system and the social injustices it creates. Advocate for Free speech and open, accountable, democracy. #GTTO