Britain has ‘blasphemy laws by the back door’ Toby Young has warned in an exclusive chat with GB News.
The Free Speech Union director was speaking in the latest episode of Silenced - an exclusive series for GBN Members lifting the lid on the stories of those who have been censored or silenced by society.
In this installment, we talk to Toby Young - who through his work with Free Speech Union has fought against censorship in Britain.
Speaking about the threat to free speech in the UK today and how it has developed over the last 5 years, Young said: “After Covid there was this massive escalation in cancel culture, a whole new area you weren't allowed to talk about without risking your livelihood.
"And then a few months after that, we had the Black Lives Matter imbroglio, and suddenly there was another set of subjects that you couldn't talk about without being cancelled.
“Since July of this year, one of the reasons our membership has just skyrocketed is because people are terrified they're going to they're going to have their collars pinched for something they said on social media.
“And that's not an unreasonable fear. I think, almost a hundred people now, have been prosecuted for saying things about the Southport attack and its aftermath.
“I think we're now beginning to realise it's dawning on a lot of people just how restricted we are and what we can say now are being zealously enforced by what is quite an authoritarian government.”
Speaking of the rise in non-crime related incidents in the UK, Young went on: “The penny is actually beginning to drop and people are becoming more and more hesitant before saying what they think, particularly online, in case they get into trouble for it.
"At the very least, it could be recorded as a non-crime hate incident. A quarter of a million non-crime hate incidents have been recorded since 2014 when the concept was first introduced.
"You can find yourself with a with effectively a criminal record, which might stop you getting a job in certain circumstances for committing a non crime.”
He warned blasphemy laws are not in law but are being enforced via the backdoor in Britain, he added: “There are also informal blasphemy laws, effectively blasphemy laws by the back door.
"We saw with the teacher in Batley Grammar school who showed pictures of the Prophet Muhammad from Charlie Hebdo to his class in a discussion about offensive cartoons and about blasphemy and what was and wasn't acceptable - a perfectly reasonable lesson.
Charlie Peters and Toby Young discuss free speech in Britain
GB News
"There's nothing prohibiting that in law or even under any of the regulations governing what can be taught in classrooms. But a mob assembled at the school gate.
"He had to flee, go into hiding with his young family. I don't think he's come out of hiding yet. That's an informal blasphemy law.”
Young also used Kettle Thorpe High School as another example of blasphemy law by the back door, where four pupils were suspended after the Quran was damaged at school.
For the full interview WATCH NOW
