Are our liberties threatened by the fear of real freedom?

Beware the danger danger of turning free speech into an irrelevant entertainment (Hyde Park Corner photograph: Getty)

The liberal left is suffering from intellectual amnesia about the attack on liberty that happened under New Labour. New Labour introduced more than 3,000 new laws by 2007, some of which were denounced as undermining fundamental “British” principles of justice. The title of an Independent article summarised the situation ‘New Labour, New Britain: Taking liberties with liberties.’ The Chris Atkins book and the popular film Taking Liberties revealed the depth and breadth of New Labour’s illiberal authoritarianism. There were important campaigns such as that by No2ID against the database state.  New libertarian organisations appeared such as the Manifesto Club with its unique opposition to the hyper-regulation of everyday life through vetting and bans on what and where we could eat and drink. My own organisation, Academics for Academic Freedom (AFAF) was formed in 2006 to defend free speech even if it was deemed “offensive”. On 28 February 2009 there was a very successful Convention on Modern Liberty called to discuss the way forward. A year later, one of its organisers, Guy Aitchison, announced that ‘a broad opposition is building to the attacks on liberty’.

In this context, the Coalition’s abolition of ID Cards, its proposal to end 28-day detention without trial, and the call for the public to suggest laws that should be scrapped on the (now archived) Your Freedom website is a breath of liberal fresh air and we should welcome these and other moves unreservedly. I should now follow this with a ‘but’, but it’s too early for that. The existence of the Coalition has created a space for political debate, comment and criticism that has not existed for over a decade.  However it is important that they go further and be much bolder about free speech.

It is worth also reminding the amnesiacs and the Coalition alike about the cultural climate New Labour illiberalism produced, which is one where the natural reaction to ideas you disagreed with was to call for bans and restrictions. The upshot of this was that people were encouraged to be compliant and practise self-censorship. It was a culture in which you learned what not to say.

The Coalition, and campaigners for liberty, must realise that freedom is not just about the removal of bad laws, but also about there being a culture in which people, first and foremost, freely and passionately disagree and try to convince people that their views are right. The best role the state can play in this is to keep out of the way entirely. It should not interfere by seeking to promote debate in ‘Freedom Zones’ that feature at the Tory Party conference as these, like Hyde Park Corner, run the danger of turning free speech into an irrelevant entertainment.

It’s not up to government to encourage free speech, but to ordinary people to speak up: even if they fear they will be denounced as having extreme or offensive views. The Coalition should realise that people don’t need government help to do. They must not patronise people in the way that has become all-too-familiar under New Labour, where institutions, even universities, allow us “safe spaces” in which we can speak openly and be ‘free.’

So here’s the nearest thing I have to a “but.”

Strong and controversial views on any topic, religion, ethics or politics remain unacceptable in the present cultural climate.  Even the “absolutist” position on free speech that AFAF holds is no more than that of John Stuart Mill in On Liberty but it is seen as extreme. The Coalition is not immune to this therapeutic mood of non-confrontation as it agonises over policies that upset some group or other, most often the media posing as the “public.”

The cultural climate that is the legacy of New Labour has created a new intellectual mood that requires that we hold moderate and uncontroversial views. It is a new, therapeutic, intellectual elitism, a civic quietism in which holding strong views or engaging in heated debate is only appropriate in formal situations such as the many faux debates in “Youth Parliaments” and the like. Unless the Coalition recognises this, their sound liberal intentions will be undermined by the fear of real freedom.

Throughout October and November, The Independent Online is partnering with the Battle of Ideas festival to present a series of guest blogs from festival speakers on the key questions of our time.

Professor Dennis Hayes is the director of Academics for Academic Freedom (AFAF) one of a panel of speakers at the Battle of Ideas Satellite event ‘A new era of liberty?’ to be held in Derby on Tuesday 12 October: http://www.battleofideas.org.uk/index.php/2010/session_detail/4366/

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