Does the UK need a First Amendment?
Battle of Ideas festival 2024, Sunday 20 October, Church House, London
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Labour has wasted little time in showing its colours on the question of free speech. There have been threats to further regulate online speech, free-speech protections in universities have been put on hold, there is renewed enthusiasm for recording non-crime hate incidents and plans to outlaw ‘Islamophobia’. The new government seems to see its job as protecting the public from the open, messy world of free expression rather than prioritising our right to openly express beliefs and opinions.
Among those keen to defend free speech, the prospect of new restrictions has generated renewed interest in creating a British ‘First Amendment’ – some kind of constitutional or legal protection of free expression. The First Amendment to the US Constitution, passed in 1791, provides that ‘Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech or of the press’. Advocates of a British equivalent would like to see the same approach enshrined in UK law.
Such a law would not solve every problem. In the US, where the culture wars reign supreme, from the public square to the workplace to universities, many individuals have been judged to have crossed the line or fallen foul of what is judged permissible. Nonetheless, the First Amendment confers on free speech the status of a ‘primary value’, with no categorical exceptions for hate speech and false or misleading speech – areas where free speech has regularly been under attack in Britain.
Sceptics say that, unlike under a system of common law, the First Amendment relies on the existence of a written constitution to give teeth to free-speech protections. If a UK ‘First Amendment’ relied on an act of Parliament, what would stop a new government simply overturning protections? Moreover, legislation that purports to offer speech protections, in areas such as equality law, has already foundered against a variety of competing rights. There are also numerous existing constraints on speech in the form of communications, public-order or online-harms legislation that would have to be considered, modified or even repealed.
Perhaps the fundamental question is whether a society looking to secure free speech should pursue this through legal enforcement. Should the priority be to build a free-speech culture that supports winning political arguments on an ongoing basis? Do we already fall back on the law too much to resolve issues that should be dealt with through political debate? Or would a First Amendment-style act provide a benchmark for free speech that would offer necessary protections in the face of competing priorities?
SPEAKERS
Nico Perrino
executive vice president, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)
Tom Slater
editor, spiked; co-host, spiked podcast and Last Orders
Thomas Walker-Werth
associate editor, The Objective Standard; author, Reason for Living: A rational approach to living your best life (forthcoming)
Toby Young
general secretary, Free Speech Union; author, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People; associate editor, Spectator
CHAIR
Claire Fox
director, Academy of Ideas; independent peer, House of Lords; author, I STILL Find That Offensive!