PREVIEW： Brokenomics ｜ Free Speech Bill with Michael Reiners
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Misogyny
3
sentences flagged
Toxicity
7
sentences flagged
Hate speech
6
sentences flagged
Summary
In this episode of Brokonomics, I'm joined by Michael Rainer, a leading voice for free speech in the UK, to talk about the problem of people being jailed for exercising their right to freedom of speech.
Transcript
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Now, as you can see, I've been kicked out of the studio for technical reasons,
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because I've got a good guest for you to make up for it.
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Now, you are part of a bit of a team, a bit like the A-team, but for free speech.
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I mean, that's very kind of you to phrase it that way, yes,
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but there is a team of us who have put together a recent piece of proposed model legislation.
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which is designed after about at least a decade for each of my co-drafters
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of staring at this problem that we've been having in this country,
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picking out the specific legislation that has caused it,
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and then attempting to skip the consultation step that lots of legislation
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and indeed think tanks get caught in and go straight to the solution.
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And that team that you've described is myself, Preston Byrne,
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who has been a fantastic voice for First Amendment protections in the US
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So that's good. So you've got a solution, but I suppose we ought to establish that we've got a
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problem. Yes, always best to start with that, I guess. So you're absolutely right. And I can't
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say I've read it word for word, but I've had a good look and it does appear to be very specific.
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I mean, it's very, you know, we need to do exactly this, this law and so on. But first of all,
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let's get to, do we have a problem with free speech in this country? Can we make that case?
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I'd suggest that we have a bigger problem than even the case is being made at the moment.
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you've got a lot of free speech organizations here you've got things that are more left-wing
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and censorship and sort of mass observation oriented like big brother watch you've also got
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the sort of famous free speech union terby young's out which presents itself as an insurer for speech
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in many ways to its membership you have a few other organizations too but they all have a bit
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of a different angle and none of them i think presenting how bad the problem is across all of
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their areas of interest well and even with those guys it's very noticeable i mean i i forget big
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brother watch so i kind of well i'm on the right so i tend to focus on the on the toby young one
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sure it's very noticeable that he just doesn't take certain cases and a lot of people are crying
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out well why aren't you doing that but nevertheless we shouldn't have to be reliant on a pressure
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group uh to bail you out of trouble once you've got in trouble for just saying something and
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that's the purpose of taking the fix to the earlier stage of before you've even got into trouble
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looking at what are the pieces of legislation that put people there.
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In the free speech union's defense, not that they necessarily need it,
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they're the preeminent sort of free speech organization in this country.
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They don't necessarily have the resources to deal with the sort of magnitude of cases,
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both on employment grounds, regulatory law grounds, criminal law stuff.
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And therefore, when they do say we can't take this,
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there'll be a bit of angling for can we fundraise on it?
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certainly but they also they don't have limitless funds and resources to do this stuff well yeah
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it's bigger than what they've got the resources to address and actually you just you just raised
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a point the employment stuff as well because i mean i i've been thinking about the people who
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just get slammed up in jail for saying something that's the high watermark of yes speech conviction
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you're right there are many other layers that chip in before that but but let's start the high
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one uh people getting jailed for saying stuff does does that happen in this country that absolutely
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happens in this country i would say that if you can if you get together all potential recorded
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both reported warning given caution given arrest made conviction made all reported crime about
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one-fifth of it is all expression and speech based so one-fifth of people arrested one-fifth of all
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And I don't think we hear that statistic enough.
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An article I wrote, statistics in that, are quoted widely nowadays.
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And there's a Times newspaper, Freedom of Information Request,
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that was fairly recent, that found about 12,000 arrests
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are taking place under a specific part of an act.
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Did you say 12,000 arrests for just one part of it?
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So I believe that's one part of the Public Order Act
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and also for some of the 1988 Malicious Communications Act.
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arrests so there's about 12 000 arrests a year under those but they're not capturing the full
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picture and i think that that's quite important that we understand the magnitude of the problem
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and of course we're only on criminal now dan which is the high water mark wait until we get
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to regulatory and employment okay but i'm still kind of stunned i mean i knew i knew the problem
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was bad but but 12 000 people arrested for something that they said and and we're still
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they put them at between 15,000 and 18,000 a year,
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because those aren't speech and expression offences.
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You're still looking at 15,000 to 18,000 convictions annually under one act, namely the public order out in 1986, which our bill suggests we repeal, of course.
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But OK, and how many, because I don't know, am I a free speech absolutist or not?
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i can imagine um i don't know i i go out and i say this person i don't like here's his home
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address i want you to go and kill him and i i whip up people and say this guy for whatever reason
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you must you must go and murder him here's his address off you go that i've kind of i'm okay i'm
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i'm kind of fine if that person gets prosecuted uh likewise if uh if i say something um about you
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that seriously damages your professional career or something i i like i'm actually i'm also okay
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with libel charges being brought on that kind of thing so do we have any sense of how many of these
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cases are things that i might actually be sympathetic to and how much is um expressing
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an opinion that another person doesn't want to hear of that 1.2 million recorded criminal offenses
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i'd say about a third of it most of the public would be sympathetic to and i include that's a
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full calculation that i've done of all the possible speech and expression based offenses
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yes and i wouldn't be sympathetic to about two-thirds of it as well i think most people
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aren't actual free speech absolutists when they're put down to to the that they're put down
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under the First Amendment, and I suppose direct incitement,
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I think it's frequently misunderstood that the First Amendment
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protects that kind of speech, which it doesn't.
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So we're not looking with this bill to introduce those sorts of things.
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We're looking to introduce a fix to the ability,
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say I take issue with your political beliefs, for example,
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and I report you to your employer for them, perhaps.
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And then there's various ratchets that can be turned in employment law,
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for example public sector equality duty which wouldn't apply in a private company most of the
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time and then also you're looking at the ability to get a regulator to investigate somebody if
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they're a regulated professional of which there's about 10 million or so people who are going to be
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regulated by their regulator yes and then you've got the ability to just report you for alarming
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and distressing me as well so you can turn all of those ratchets as somebody who's like i don't like
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what you have to say Dan I think your politics is awful and I'd like to get you sacked I'd like to
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inconvenience you with your regulator and I'd also like to potentially give you a criminal conviction
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for alarming and distressing me those things those particular ratchets to turn need to be
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completely unpicked and that's exactly what we've set out to do with this bill right okay I mean I'm
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probably a bad example for porting me to my bosses for my political opinions because honestly about
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every day there are dozens of people in the comments who are trying to get me in trouble
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with Carl for something I've said um uh and yes but I I totally take your point 18,000 um whatever
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it is uh arrests or convictions or it was and and maybe 4,000 of those we we might actually agree
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with extreme so so many many thousands left and and what about jailings because every so often on
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social media you see somebody point out that we've we've jailed more people for free speech than
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russia or china or i think that's the same stat though it's it's convictions under the public
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order act oh i see which we do on paper seem to send more people to not to jail necessarily because
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all of those people weren't going to jail we are convicting more people of a criminal offense of a
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speech kind than many places and i think that's the berlin wall and and i and i i don't know if
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this is right because it sounds so extreme but apparently we convict more people of speech
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issues in this country than we do in China. And when I say more, I don't mean more per capita,
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more per head of population. I literally mean more.
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I can't speak to that, but I wouldn't be overly surprised if we do actually... The criminal
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justice system has been turned into basically a grievance process when it comes to speech
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offences, because it is often that people report their political adversaries to the police. And
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then the criminal justice system ceases to be this arbiter of of what you would expect of lawful
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conduct and they start to be the arbiter of interpersonal grievances at a level they shouldn't
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be yes i i mean i i know some police officers and one of them worked uh had had a patch working on
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a sort of council estate in uh in in one of our cities and when i asked him what he does and he
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says well i'm a social worker i i i go around and have to speak to people knock on doors because
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they've sent a tweet to one of their friends or relatives or neighbors and the other person has
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reported it to the police and that somehow becomes his problem a lot of it is dealt with in a
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community way like that when somebody is reported to the police now there's times when and this bill
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that we've put together preserves it harassment for example that should be preserved i think in
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the criminal law if you are pursuing a seriously long course of conduct it's only two instances
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A lot of that stuff does get dealt with by social
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that they attempted to and successfully did convict Samar.
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but I'm aware of that particular dastardly section of the Act
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that we suggest we repeal that the conviction was brought under
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because it is the offense of stirring up racial hatred.
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it's either that somebody intended to stir racial hatred
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or that it was likely that racial hatred would be stirred up.
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and there may in fact be no evidence that they did.
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So we're dealing in the realm of imaginary complainants.
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it's imagining an observer and imagining in their mind
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would be conjured in the head of a woke state employee i mean it wouldn't be in a sensible
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person's head this imaginary reasonable observer the reasonable man test is often applied in these
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situations and it's called an objective test obviously you and i can see that that is not
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true and you're again imagining a reasonable man well i mean yes you've got reasonable man
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reasonable woman, leftists, state woke employees, and quite frankly, they're a long way from
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reasonable. So I mean, these people are lunatics. We cover that all the time.
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When you're able to define what reason is by the culture of a place, then that test ceases to be
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objective anymore. I've used in that bill, the phrase, a person of reasonable firmness,
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because I think that's slightly more to the point of what we're looking for.
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Would a person of reasonable firmness be stirred to racial hatred
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if they saw, say, a sticker in the case of Mr. Melia?
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And if they wouldn't, then that offence wouldn't be made out.
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Can you imagine any scenario in which a person might be offended possibly?
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I mean, that's almost the realm we're in with that one.
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Now, I should say, and I should make this clear,
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that Part 3, Section 19 of the Public Order Act
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and it's only really used to make an example of somebody.
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And I sympathise greatly with Mr. Amelia's case
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And Lucy Connolly was, of course, convicted under that.
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She pled guilty, which is an important distinction.
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She was encouraged to plead guilty under that exact section,
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following the stabbings and the reaction to that.
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so there was actually double digits use of that but it's a sparingly used part of the public
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order act the one that really makes the meat and potatoes is section four 4a and five which are
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have you alarmed and distressed me either you as a person have alarmed and distressed me through
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your own conduct or perhaps you've got a sign which is section five a sign or a flag that may
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have alarmed or distressed me those are the ones that make up the anywhere between 12 and 18 000
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we're arresting you and we're going to hold you
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and therefore having the police act on your behalf
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to rectify that offence if you enjoyed that content and of course you did because you are
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