The UK’s free speech crisis

Labour’s pushing forward with the same thing that enabled the rape gangs

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Last week will forever be remembered as the week in which Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the Labour government jumped on what they once dismissed as a “bandwagon of the far-right”.

In recent months, one Labour MP after another lined up to dismiss people calling for a national inquiry into the mass rape of British children as “far right”, “extremist”, or, in the words of Labour MP Lucy Powell, blowing a “little trumpet” and “dog-whistle”.

But now, after months of relentless pressure, Labour has finally been forced to recognise what was always obvious to everybody else in this country —we need answers to the question of how the rape gang scandal was ever allowed to happen.

But if you think this is where the story ends, that Labour has finally come to its senses, then think again.

Because, as I’m about to show you, on the very same day Labour committed to hold inquiry into the rape gangs, they committed themselves to something that enabled the rape gangs to begin with.

Here’s everything you need to know.

What am I talking about?

I’m talking about how, while hoping nobody would notice, last week Starmer’s Labour quietly pushed forward with a plan to impose a dogmatic and dangerous new definition of “Islamophobia” on the country and its institutions.

And now this definition looks set to do the very thing that allowed the rape gangs to operate in the first place, by stifling free speech, reframing people’s legitimate concerns as “racist” and “Islamophobic”, and imposing speech codes and censorship on institutions that will encourage public officials to stay quiet, rather than speak out.

While everybody was distracted last week, Labour’s secretive new working group on “Islamophobia” quietly launched a “call for evidence”, asking people to help it develop a new definition it says “will help Ministers and other relevant bodies understand what constitutes unacceptable treatment and prejudice against Muslim communities”.

But this call for evidence was leaked —it was not made public.

We do not know who is being consulted. Nor do we know if the public will be invited to share their thoughts, or if those who are sceptical if not opposed to this attempt to police our language will be able to contribute.

What we do know, based on what we’ve seen so far, is that contrary to Labour’s talk about tackling the rape gang scandal and getting its victims the truth and justice they deserve …

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