One of the roots of Britain’s political development into a liberal state is the right of free speech. Often challenged by uneasy monarchs and suspicious governments – Charles I and Lord Liverpool are examples – it has had enduring power. It remains as relevant today as it was in 1641 or 1819.

Yet it is in poor health: and we need to revive it.

We’ve all heard the formulation. “I’m all in favour of freedom of speech, but…”.

That is a paradoxical tribute to the enduring principle of free speech – that even in twenty-first century Britain, with its no-platforming, its Twitter storms and its little army of trainee police censors – we are still inclined to give the idea some acknowledgement before (of course) discarding it.

And that is where we are going wrong.

Recently I re-read J.S.Mill’s essay On Liberty. Every person interested in the future of our democracy should read his work – expressed in supple and very modern prose – preferably annually.

Not just as an education in the principles of a free society. Mill also tackles directly one of the most poisonous weeds spreading in our own day. Having set out the reasons for free speech generally, he deprecates the view that arguments ought only to be expressed in a temperate manner, within the bounds of fair discussion.

He continues: “Much might be said on the impossibility of fixing where those supposed bounds are to be placed; for if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked… this offence is given wherever the attack is telling and powerful.”

Now we live in a world where taking offence is a perfectly acceptable way of closing down free debate and discussion. Gender and identity politics are particularly prone to this, given the inability of the disputants (on both sides of any divide) to separate the personal from the general. Students now also show a distressing tendency to reach for the offence button – less forgivable are the academics who back them.

We need to recognise that this is morally wrong and practically pernicious. We have allowed this trend to flourish because we have put the interests of sections of society above those of society as a whole. And, as Mill noted, the better and more robust the argument, the quicker we are to reach for offence rather than reasoned refutation.

How we got to this place is clear. Rather than treating freedom of speech as a central principle of democracy, subjecting any proposal to deviate from it to minute and sceptical scrutiny, we took – at least since 1945 – the path of regulated civility and politeness, and decided we preferred to live in a society where giving offence can be called hate speech, and where whole groups have to be protected from hearing or reading things they find difficult, rather than protecting individuals against threats (a very different thing).

Our intentions were good. We wanted to be nice. The results however have circumscribed our freedom to express unpopular opinions. Because once the principle of liberty to say what we think is abandoned, there is no boundary that can be set and defended. Someone, somewhere, can assert their right to be offended – and complain.

Freedom of expression is everything or it is nothing.

The irony is that a remedy is both easy and obvious. We should enshrine it properly in law and an overhauled constitution.

Very early on its history, our sister-democracy the United States amended its constitution, adding “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” (First Amendment, 1791).

That firm statement gave successive Supreme Courts – especially in the twentieth century – the ability to define freedom of expression more and more widely; it encouraged the creation of a press that was not cowed by the rich and powerful; and it gave Americans the right to express unpopular – and yes, offensive and unpleasant opinions – without fear of the authorities.

We should have the same here, and we should have it before it’s too late, and we have forgotten what liberty feels like.

Martin Le Jeune is a political consultant. 

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