Time to cancel the cancel culture: in defence of Revd Jarel Robinson-Brown

The ability to speak freely and express oneself without recourse to the law is the bedrock of a free and open society. Regardless of your own beliefs and opinions, everyone should have the right to talk and discuss so-called dangerous ideas, no matter how uncomfortable. It is for this reason that advocates of free speech often find themselves defending people they don’t agree with.

This is the curious position I find myself in when it comes to a young clergyman called Jarel Robinson-Brown. The Reverend attracted widespread condemnation after posting a message on social media that was critical of the adulation being poured out over the recent passing of Captain Tom Moore. The philanthropic work of the 100-year-old Covid fundraiser has been rightly praised by all in the media. He raised £33 million for the NHS by walking lengths of his garden with a Zimmer frame. But the reverend took exception to some of the praise. In a since deleted Tweet, Brown said that “The cult of Captain Tom Moore is a cult of white British nationalism.”

It didn’t take long for the criticism to start. Much of it online. A Change.org petition was launched, calling for the removal of Robinson-Brown from his position at the Church. The online petition is very close to reaching its target of 25,000 signatures.

But by far the most scathing condemnation came from those in the media, many of whom are the very people who would normally extol the virtues of free speech and passionately oppose the notion of cancel culture – the process where public figures are harassed and hounded out of their job by social justice advocates for holding opinions that run contrary to their vaunted woke orthodoxy.

In 2017, former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie made an oblique reference that resulted in him being removed from his job. “Had that been a white priest talking about a black hero he would have been fired/suspended.so…”, he wrote on Twitter in response to the Robinson-Brown furore.

If you go purely by the man’s political beliefs, I would hazard a guess and say he is someone I wouldn’t normally agree with. A cursory glance at Brown’s Twitter page reveals he is someone who has a passion for identity politics and appears to be saturated in the politically correct ideology of social justice activism.

Personally, I feel what Robinson-Brown has done is conflate nationalism with patriotism. Soaked in the language of identity politics and critical race theory, our sense of pride and national identity has been irrevocably linked to what racial identitarians see as the zero sum game of slavery and attacked for its colonial past. Captain Tom Moore, was given a knighthood for his charity work. Maybe the Reverend sees the knighthood, like so many other activists, as a symbol of the legacy of colonialism and slavery. For social justice advocates, Identity always comes first – ironically, a position held by many nationalists.

Robinson-Brown is hardly new to this. He has often been critical of Boris Johnson, accusing him of “talking nonsense” on many issues. In another rant, the Reverend, who is a prominent gay rights activist, took issue with “ignorant White Christian men” when it comes to the LGBTQ debate within the church of England.

What this young clergyman said was stupid. It was divisive and incongruous with the beliefs of millions of patriotic people in this country. After all, events like this bring people together. We tend to unite when culture and values are shared. It crosses class lines. What Brown said has the ability to divide and fragment a society that has bonded through a shared identity and understanding. But, he has a right to say it.

That is one of the fundamental reasons that civil liberty is so important. We have a duty to criticise the government. They must be held to account. We must also have a duty to offend. It was in part due to the offence caused by the Gay News magazine, which in June 1976 published a poem detailing the sexual proclivities of a gay Roman centurion fantasising over the crucifixion of Jesus. The process started a debate over blasphemy laws, which inevitably led to their abolition – expanding free speech for everyone.

Something that appears to have been lost by some of the more passionate defenders of free speech.