Great Britain: With Law Against “the Abolition of Culture”

Gavin Williamson, UK Education Secretary, has a mission to defend freedom of expression. In another guest’s “telegraph” He was only warning of a “real and worrying danger from censorship and” cultural abolition “in our universities.” This danger is so great in his eyes that he wants to protect freedom of expression even more forcefully with a new law. Critics see it as a new culture war and its supporters are a protection from the hard left. This is reigniting a controversy that has been burning in Great Britain for years.

Williamson is primarily interested in what has been called no-platforming. What is meant is the phenomenon of disrupting discussions due to protests and the emptying of the speakers from events. The new law aims to enable the discharged people to sue the organizers for compensation. In one Strategy Paper The Ministry of Education is also proposing to appoint a “free speech advocate” to investigate violations of freedom of expression. The issue has always been of relevance to the Conservative Party because many of its voters feel constrained by “political correctness” and “annoyance” of the left. Boris Johnson pledged to protect academic freedom and freedom of expression at universities in the 2019 election manifesto.