A busy first year for free speech campaign

A FREE speech campaign group set up a year ago is now dealing with 20 new cases a week.

- David Maddox

The Free Speech Union is marking its first anniversary this weekend having already provided legal support for up to 700 individual cases.

In the past 12 months, the FSU has helped bus drivers, social workers, council employees, civil servants, police officers, students and teachers.

The vast majority of cases that the union has dealt with have been from ordinary members of the public.

The anniversary comes after North West Leicestershire MP Andrew Bridgen had talks with Home Office advisers to scrap hate speech laws, which form the basis for many of the actions brought against the people the FSU has helped.

He said: “I am planning on joining the FSU. It has never been more needed – and the statistics of the cases it has dealt with tell a depressing story about what is happening in Britain.

“We won the battle for Brexit, now we must win the battle for free speech in Britain.”