Cancelling cancel culture
by David Scullion, The Critic:
Toby Young’s Free Speech Union, launched to great fanfare at the end of last month, already has one prominent member who has come under attack.
Trevor Phillips, the former chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality and its successor, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has been accused by the Labour Party of Islamophobia and is facing expulsion from the party of which he has been a supporter for thirty years. The FSU have started a petition to the Labour Party to “drop these trumped-up charges, apologise to Trevor Phillips and fully reinstate his membership”.
As well as Trevor Phillips, Harry Miller and other celebrated causes, the Union also invited along to its launch someone who has never been present in public life – and has faced years of stress solely for things she posted on her private Facebook account – Kristie Higgs. The 44 year old had been working for six years as a pastoral assistant in a secondary school when she was called in to a disciplinary hearing which lasted for six hours. Despite her unblemished record at the school, she was told by a group of about five senior staff that her private posts “were that of a pro-Nazi, far-right extremist”.
An anonymous ‘friend’ had showed her employer two of her recent Facebook posts, one of which encouraged friends to sign a petition challenging the Government’s plans to introduce mandatory sex education in Primary Schools (on the grounds that the lessons would heavily reflect the current sexual orthodoxy), and an article which raised concerns about pro-transgender books being used in her 10 year old’s Primary School.
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