For speech to be free we must allow for ideas we disagree with

ARE people are only prepared to support freedom of speech and assembly when they already agree with the opinions of the people they are defending?

- Kathleen Stock

In recent weeks I’ve wondered if this is true. With the renewed outbreak of the Israel-Palestine conflict and an increase in strong public feeling on both sides, some of the most vocal Conservative defenders of a free society in the recent past seem to have suddenly decided they aren’t such fans of these central democratic freedoms anymore.

Take Rishi Sunak, who last May defended my right to appear at the Oxford Union and to express my criticisms of the political demands of trans activists there — including my rejection of the idea that trans women are literally women. “A free society requires free debate,” he said at the time, continuing: “We should all be encouraged to engage respectfully with the ideas of others.” He also claimed a “tolerant society is one which allows us to understand those we disagree with”.

Yet a free society also requires having the right to protest peacefully, as long as the protest does not conflict with the rights of others. Non-violent protest is one of the principal mechanisms by which people can indicate their unhappiness with the political status quo. Somewhat contradictorily then, last week the Prime Minister suggested via his spokesman that the planned pro-Palestinian march should not go ahead, on the basis that the Armistice Day timing would be “provocative and disrespectful”.