The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Brokenomics ｜ Free Speech Bill with Michael Reiners

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Brokonomics.

00:00:28.140 Now, as you can see, I've been kicked out of the studio for technical reasons,

00:00:32.340 and I've come in here, but that's all right,

00:00:34.020 because I've got a good guest for you to make up for it.

00:00:36.960 I'm joined by Michael Rainers, lawyer.

00:00:40.760 Thank you for coming on, Michael.

00:00:41.780 Thank you for having me, Dan.

00:00:42.980 Now, you are part of a bit of a team, a bit like the A-team, but for free speech.

00:00:49.420 I mean, that's very kind of you to phrase it that way, yes,

00:00:51.580 but there is a team of us who have put together a recent piece of proposed model legislation.

00:00:58.140 which is designed after about at least a decade for each of my co-drafters

00:01:04.080 of staring at this problem that we've been having in this country,

00:01:07.740 picking out the specific legislation that has caused it,

00:01:10.460 and then attempting to skip the consultation step that lots of legislation

00:01:14.980 and indeed think tanks get caught in and go straight to the solution.

00:01:19.300 And that team that you've described is myself, Preston Byrne,

00:01:22.920 who has been a fantastic voice for First Amendment protections in the US

00:01:26.420 and is a dual qualified lawyer.

00:01:28.200 He's also a solicitor here.

00:01:29.840 And then Elijah Granit,

00:01:31.240 who is a scholar of considerable breadth

00:01:33.280 on a variety of different jurisdictions

00:01:35.460 and has basically taken an eye to it

00:01:38.540 after Preston and I put the thing together.

00:01:41.520 And he has a very keen understanding

00:01:43.260 of what the Office of Parliamentary Council

00:01:44.980 usually brings to the table

00:01:46.880 when they scrutinize a bill,

00:01:48.540 what flies and what doesn't,

00:01:50.160 and has smoothed over this thing

00:01:51.680 with, I would say, aplomb

00:01:53.660 and made the thing look rather beautiful too.

00:01:56.060 So that's good. So you've got a solution, but I suppose we ought to establish that we've got a

00:01:59.180 problem. Yes, always best to start with that, I guess. So you're absolutely right. And I can't

00:02:05.420 say I've read it word for word, but I've had a good look and it does appear to be very specific.

00:02:09.640 I mean, it's very, you know, we need to do exactly this, this law and so on. But first of all,

00:02:14.060 let's get to, do we have a problem with free speech in this country? Can we make that case?

00:02:18.520 I'd suggest that we have a bigger problem than even the case is being made at the moment.

00:02:22.060 you've got a lot of free speech organizations here you've got things that are more left-wing

00:02:26.520 and censorship and sort of mass observation oriented like big brother watch you've also got

00:02:31.240 the sort of famous free speech union terby young's out which presents itself as an insurer for speech

00:02:36.860 in many ways to its membership you have a few other organizations too but they all have a bit

00:02:42.420 of a different angle and none of them i think presenting how bad the problem is across all of

00:02:47.180 their areas of interest well and even with those guys it's very noticeable i mean i i forget big

00:02:53.100 brother watch so i kind of well i'm on the right so i tend to focus on the on the toby young one

00:02:57.520 sure it's very noticeable that he just doesn't take certain cases and a lot of people are crying

00:03:02.520 out well why aren't you doing that but nevertheless we shouldn't have to be reliant on a pressure

00:03:06.400 group uh to bail you out of trouble once you've got in trouble for just saying something and

00:03:11.860 that's the purpose of taking the fix to the earlier stage of before you've even got into trouble

00:03:16.320 looking at what are the pieces of legislation that put people there.

00:03:20.040 And there's quite a lot of them.

00:03:21.360 It's not always an obvious thing.

00:03:23.520 In the free speech union's defense, not that they necessarily need it,

00:03:26.680 they're the preeminent sort of free speech organization in this country.

00:03:30.320 They don't necessarily have the resources to deal with the sort of magnitude of cases,

00:03:34.740 both on employment grounds, regulatory law grounds, criminal law stuff.

00:03:39.780 And therefore, when they do say we can't take this,

00:03:42.700 there'll be a bit of angling for can we fundraise on it?

00:03:45.540 certainly but they also they don't have limitless funds and resources to do this stuff well yeah

00:03:50.880 it's bigger than what they've got the resources to address and actually you just you just raised

00:03:55.780 a point the employment stuff as well because i mean i i've been thinking about the people who

00:04:00.500 just get slammed up in jail for saying something that's the high watermark of yes speech conviction

00:04:06.740 you're right there are many other layers that chip in before that but but let's start the high

00:04:11.060 one uh people getting jailed for saying stuff does does that happen in this country that absolutely

00:04:17.860 happens in this country i would say that if you can if you get together all potential recorded

00:04:23.420 both reported warning given caution given arrest made conviction made all reported crime about

00:04:32.560 one-fifth of it is all expression and speech based so one-fifth of people arrested one-fifth of all

00:04:39.840 recorded crime. So not

00:04:42.040 one-fifth of people arrested.

00:04:43.720 But one-fifth of recorded crime

00:04:45.620 concerns speech and expression.

00:04:48.480 Yes.

00:04:49.560 And that includes the unpopular speech,

00:04:51.740 that includes things that would be

00:04:54.000 a, say, an offensive

00:04:56.080 piece of media or something like that.

00:04:57.840 But that is one-fifth of all recorded crime.

00:05:01.360 Good God.

00:05:02.080 And I don't think we hear that statistic enough.

00:05:04.520 I find that what

00:05:05.900 we do hear is we hear sometimes

00:05:07.780 An article I wrote, statistics in that, are quoted widely nowadays.

00:05:12.640 And there's a Times newspaper, Freedom of Information Request,

00:05:16.500 that was fairly recent, that found about 12,000 arrests

00:05:20.260 are taking place under a specific part of an act.

00:05:23.180 And that's been reported on a lot.

00:05:24.880 So run that by me again.

00:05:26.180 Did you say 12,000 arrests for just one part of it?

00:05:30.760 So I believe that's one part of the Public Order Act

00:05:32.320 and also for some of the 1988 Malicious Communications Act.

00:05:37.200 arrests so there's about 12 000 arrests a year under those but they're not capturing the full

00:05:42.460 picture and i think that that's quite important that we understand the magnitude of the problem

00:05:46.440 and of course we're only on criminal now dan which is the high water mark wait until we get

00:05:51.360 to regulatory and employment okay but i'm still kind of stunned i mean i knew i knew the problem

00:05:56.260 was bad but but 12 000 people arrested for something that they said and and we're still

00:06:04.260 looking at the top of the iceberg here.

00:06:06.780 Absolutely.

00:06:08.120 I mean, the Ministry of Justice's own figures

00:06:10.200 for convictions, not arrests,

00:06:13.220 under the Public Order Act 1986,

00:06:16.160 they put them at between 15,000 and 18,000 a year,

00:06:20.000 convictions, under the one Act.

00:06:21.980 So that's Section 4, 4A, and 5,

00:06:24.860 because I'm discounting in that number,

00:06:27.280 riot, violent disorder, and prey,

00:06:31.740 because those aren't speech and expression offences.

00:06:33.680 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.

00:06:45.420 Yes, yes.

00:06:47.140 That's why I'm still slightly stunned by this.

00:06:49.300 But OK, and how many, because I don't know, am I a free speech absolutist or not?

00:06:56.380 I mean, I can imagine scenarios.

00:06:57.760 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

00:07:06.720 address i want you to go and kill him and i i whip up people and say this guy for whatever reason 0.63

00:07:14.040 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 0.99

00:07:21.360 i'm kind of fine if that person gets prosecuted uh likewise if uh if i say something um about you 0.99

00:07:28.680 that seriously damages your professional career or something i i like i'm actually i'm also okay

00:07:34.460 with libel charges being brought on that kind of thing so do we have any sense of how many of these

00:07:41.300 cases are things that i might actually be sympathetic to and how much is um expressing

00:07:48.620 an opinion that another person doesn't want to hear of that 1.2 million recorded criminal offenses

00:07:55.680 i'd say about a third of it most of the public would be sympathetic to and i include that's a

00:08:01.100 full calculation that i've done of all the possible speech and expression based offenses

00:08:06.620 yes and i wouldn't be sympathetic to about two-thirds of it as well i think most people

00:08:10.720 aren't actual free speech absolutists when they're put down to to the that they're put down

00:08:16.900 to the grindstone of the thing

00:08:18.180 and you find that a lot of it

00:08:19.500 actually is sort of

00:08:20.920 things that would be regarded

00:08:22.740 as obscene

00:08:23.560 and involve children

00:08:24.920 and that sort of thing.

00:08:25.740 But they are a form of expression.

00:08:28.140 Now Keir Starmer likes to use this point

00:08:29.860 to then justify 0.98

00:08:31.060 taking out all three thirds

00:08:33.380 of that expression.

00:08:34.920 But about a third of that

00:08:35.920 1.2 million recorded

00:08:37.180 criminal instances

00:08:39.220 are going to be things

00:08:40.980 that most people would say

00:08:42.020 that's nonsense.

00:08:42.700 So there's direct incitement,

00:08:44.400 very gratuitous stuff

00:08:47.360 about children

00:08:48.180 which we keep protections in

00:08:50.040 in that bill

00:08:50.720 despite the fact

00:08:51.620 we've repealed

00:08:52.160 quite a lot of stuff

00:08:53.080 those things

00:08:54.000 should still be criminal

00:08:55.360 they are under

00:08:56.380 the first amendment

00:08:57.080 in America

00:08:57.700 which we tend to think of

00:08:58.840 as being

00:08:59.240 you know

00:08:59.700 the archetypal

00:09:00.500 legal benchmark

00:09:02.240 of what free speech

00:09:03.560 absolutely

00:09:03.840 yeah if I'm vaguely right

00:09:05.700 there might have been

00:09:07.000 like a child pornography

00:09:08.120 issue that

00:09:08.960 went before

00:09:09.640 maybe the Supreme Court

00:09:11.760 and it was like

00:09:12.260 no actually no

00:09:12.900 that's not okay

00:09:14.320 under the First Amendment, and I suppose direct incitement,

00:09:17.560 they still rule that out.

00:09:18.740 Still totally ruled out, yeah.

00:09:20.140 I think it's frequently misunderstood that the First Amendment

00:09:22.880 protects that kind of speech, which it doesn't.

00:09:25.200 That is still criminal there.

00:09:26.640 So we're not looking with this bill to introduce those sorts of things.

00:09:30.400 We're looking to introduce a fix to the ability,

00:09:34.040 say I take issue with your political beliefs, for example,

00:09:37.000 and I report you to your employer for them, perhaps.

00:09:39.880 And then there's various ratchets that can be turned in employment law,

00:09:43.360 for example public sector equality duty which wouldn't apply in a private company most of the

00:09:48.120 time and then also you're looking at the ability to get a regulator to investigate somebody if

00:09:53.780 they're a regulated professional of which there's about 10 million or so people who are going to be

00:09:59.160 regulated by their regulator yes and then you've got the ability to just report you for alarming

00:10:05.680 and distressing me as well so you can turn all of those ratchets as somebody who's like i don't like

00:10:10.500 what you have to say Dan I think your politics is awful and I'd like to get you sacked I'd like to

00:10:14.940 inconvenience you with your regulator and I'd also like to potentially give you a criminal conviction

00:10:18.980 for alarming and distressing me those things those particular ratchets to turn need to be

00:10:24.340 completely unpicked and that's exactly what we've set out to do with this bill right okay I mean I'm

00:10:29.960 probably a bad example for porting me to my bosses for my political opinions because honestly about

00:10:36.360 every day there are dozens of people in the comments who are trying to get me in trouble

00:10:39.860 with Carl for something I've said um uh and yes but I I totally take your point 18,000 um whatever

00:10:48.640 it is uh arrests or convictions or it was and and maybe 4,000 of those we we might actually agree

00:10:54.980 with extreme so so many many thousands left and and what about jailings because every so often on

00:11:02.180 social media you see somebody point out that we've we've jailed more people for free speech than

00:11:06.800 russia or china or i think that's the same stat though it's it's convictions under the public

00:11:12.080 order act oh i see which we do on paper seem to send more people to not to jail necessarily because

00:11:19.300 all of those people weren't going to jail we are convicting more people of a criminal offense of a

00:11:24.440 speech kind than many places and i think that's the berlin wall and and i and i i don't know if

00:11:31.320 this is right because it sounds so extreme but apparently we convict more people of speech

00:11:36.120 issues in this country than we do in China. And when I say more, I don't mean more per capita,

00:11:43.180 more per head of population. I literally mean more.

00:11:47.880 I can't speak to that, but I wouldn't be overly surprised if we do actually... The criminal

00:11:52.680 justice system has been turned into basically a grievance process when it comes to speech

00:11:57.360 offences, because it is often that people report their political adversaries to the police. And

00:12:03.240 then the criminal justice system ceases to be this arbiter of of what you would expect of lawful

00:12:08.960 conduct and they start to be the arbiter of interpersonal grievances at a level they shouldn't

00:12:13.820 be yes i i mean i i know some police officers and one of them worked uh had had a patch working on

00:12:20.240 a sort of council estate in uh in in one of our cities and when i asked him what he does and he

00:12:26.680 says well i'm a social worker i i i go around and have to speak to people knock on doors because

00:12:31.640 they've sent a tweet to one of their friends or relatives or neighbors and the other person has

00:12:36.700 reported it to the police and that somehow becomes his problem a lot of it is dealt with in a

00:12:41.320 community way like that when somebody is reported to the police now there's times when and this bill

00:12:48.580 that we've put together preserves it harassment for example that should be preserved i think in

00:12:53.580 the criminal law if you are pursuing a seriously long course of conduct it's only two instances

00:12:59.060 is required for criminal harassment

00:13:00.680 that is deliberately

00:13:02.120 to intimidate, to make somebody feel

00:13:04.940 like they are going to have immediate

00:13:06.840 harm done to them, that should still be

00:13:08.980 preserved as an offence.

00:13:10.720 A lot of that stuff does get dealt with by social

00:13:12.900 workers rather than in

00:13:14.900 court. People will be

00:13:16.820 round to say, you do understand that you've

00:13:18.720 upset this person.

00:13:20.680 So in the cases that I'm talking about,

00:13:22.860 my friend would only be dealing

00:13:24.900 with 0.99

00:13:25.340 one woman sending another woman 1.00

00:13:28.300 on her estate

00:13:29.700 a text words to the effect

00:13:30.940 of stay away from my boyfriend 1.00

00:13:32.100 you slag 1.00

00:13:32.740 and that would be repeated 0.99

00:13:33.880 more than once

00:13:34.580 and then apparently

00:13:35.780 that's a police issue

00:13:36.760 but yes

00:13:38.320 well it isn't really is it

00:13:40.240 it's a personal issue

00:13:41.380 well it is

00:13:42.040 but it is

00:13:42.840 yes

00:13:43.200 okay so

00:13:44.980 we've got a serious problem

00:13:47.400 with convicting

00:13:48.200 and also jailing people

00:13:50.060 actually before I move off

00:13:51.300 this point

00:13:51.680 did you happen to see

00:13:53.020 something I did with Sam Melia

00:13:54.440 I saw the two of you

00:13:56.260 photographed together

00:13:57.560 right

00:13:58.120 Last week, yes.

00:13:59.180 Are you familiar with his case?

00:14:01.180 So it was Public Order Act Part 3, Section 19,

00:14:05.040 that they attempted to and successfully did convict Samar.

00:14:09.200 Right.

00:14:09.900 I've never met Mr. Miller,

00:14:12.000 but I'm aware of that particular dastardly section of the Act

00:14:15.800 that we suggest we repeal that the conviction was brought under

00:14:20.880 and the prosecution was brought under.

00:14:22.840 So that particular section is interesting

00:14:26.080 because it is the offense of stirring up racial hatred.

00:14:30.840 Racial hatred isn't particularly well-defined.

00:14:33.220 It's not defined in the statute.

00:14:35.580 And then to actually make out the offense,

00:14:39.920 it's either that somebody intended to stir racial hatred

00:14:42.720 or that it was likely that racial hatred would be stirred up.

00:14:47.080 So that second leg, that optional second leg,

00:14:49.820 sorry, or type second leg,

00:14:52.700 requires that an imaginary observer

00:14:54.840 is potentially stirred to hatred

00:14:57.540 upon seeing something that they haven't seen

00:15:00.140 and there may in fact be no evidence that they did.

00:15:03.540 So we're dealing in the realm of imaginary complainants.

00:15:07.600 Imagining hatred in...

00:15:10.460 Sorry, to put it properly,

00:15:11.860 it's imagining an observer and imagining in their mind

00:15:14.860 that they would be stirred to hatred,

00:15:16.760 which isn't defined.

00:15:17.500 Now, this imaginary observer

00:15:20.740 would be conjured in the head of a woke state employee i mean it wouldn't be in a sensible

00:15:27.640 person's head this imaginary reasonable observer the reasonable man test is often applied in these

00:15:34.300 situations and it's called an objective test obviously you and i can see that that is not

00:15:38.980 true and you're again imagining a reasonable man well i mean yes you've got reasonable man

00:15:45.180 reasonable woman, leftists, state woke employees, and quite frankly, they're a long way from

00:15:52.820 reasonable. So I mean, these people are lunatics. We cover that all the time. 0.99

00:15:56.880 When you're able to define what reason is by the culture of a place, then that test ceases to be

00:16:02.400 objective anymore. I've used in that bill, the phrase, a person of reasonable firmness,

00:16:08.820 because I think that's slightly more to the point of what we're looking for.

00:16:12.600 Would a person of reasonable firmness be stirred to racial hatred

00:16:17.060 if they saw, say, a sticker in the case of Mr. Melia?

00:16:21.180 And if they wouldn't, then that offence wouldn't be made out.

00:16:24.240 But just if any observer would be, will do.

00:16:28.720 Any hypothetical observer?

00:16:30.040 Of course, hypothetical.

00:16:30.860 Can you imagine any scenario in which a person might be offended possibly?

00:16:36.060 I mean, that's almost the realm we're in with that one.

00:16:38.920 Now, I should say, and I should make this clear,

00:16:41.700 that Part 3, Section 19 of the Public Order Act

00:16:44.560 is very infrequently used.

00:16:47.000 And among the 15,000 to 18,000 convictions

00:16:49.260 that take place for expression under that act,

00:16:52.180 it makes up about five a year.

00:16:55.140 So it's sparingly used,

00:16:57.360 and it's only really used to make an example of somebody.

00:17:00.820 And I sympathise greatly with Mr. Amelia's case

00:17:02.860 because it seems that that was exactly...

00:17:04.100 He was one of the five to be made example of.

00:17:06.880 Well, I mean, that's got me worried now

00:17:08.200 because I've no idea who the other four were.

00:17:10.620 Nor do I off the top of my head.

00:17:12.960 And Lucy Connolly was, of course, convicted under that.

00:17:15.580 She pled guilty, which is an important distinction.

00:17:18.200 She was encouraged to plead guilty under that exact section,

00:17:22.940 Part 3, Section 19.

00:17:24.760 Starmer, upon entering office in 2024,

00:17:27.920 ramped up the use of this section,

00:17:30.640 perhaps encouraging the CPS to do so

00:17:32.920 during and after the Southport unrest

00:17:35.600 following the stabbings and the reaction to that.

00:17:37.820 so there was actually double digits use of that but it's a sparingly used part of the public

00:17:44.080 order act the one that really makes the meat and potatoes is section four 4a and five which are

00:17:50.500 have you alarmed and distressed me either you as a person have alarmed and distressed me through

00:17:55.560 your own conduct or perhaps you've got a sign which is section five a sign or a flag that may

00:18:00.580 have alarmed or distressed me those are the ones that make up the anywhere between 12 and 18 000

00:18:06.540 convictions a year

00:18:07.880 they're the ones

00:18:09.260 that the flagging

00:18:10.020 type

00:18:10.680 there was a lot of

00:18:12.160 putting up of flags

00:18:13.180 on lampposts

00:18:14.140 often without permission

00:18:14.960 from the property owners

00:18:16.220 did any of them

00:18:16.900 get prosecuted?

00:18:18.300 I don't believe that anyone

00:18:19.160 was prosecuted

00:18:20.000 under section 5

00:18:20.840 but there was at least

00:18:21.640 one arrest

00:18:22.280 who was the

00:18:23.240 I believe it was the

00:18:24.080 flag force campaign chap

00:18:25.440 who

00:18:26.200 I might be getting that wrong

00:18:27.260 but there was an arrest

00:18:28.240 under section 5

00:18:29.300 of the public order

00:18:30.220 at 1986

00:18:30.980 for

00:18:31.980 this is a piece of signage

00:18:33.740 incidentally

00:18:35.000 the St. George's flag

00:18:36.060 which has caused alarm and distress

00:18:37.920 and that is all we have to tell you

00:18:39.540 we're arresting you and we're going to hold you

00:18:41.480 and that's all they require

00:18:43.600 whether it would be made out in a court of law

00:18:46.760 is another matter

00:18:48.020 but you can inconvenience someone considerably

00:18:52.160 by simply reporting them

00:18:53.700 for having alarmed and distressed you

00:18:55.860 that needs to go

00:18:57.000 and we've made very clear in that bill

00:18:58.560 that there is no right to being offended

00:19:01.400 and therefore having the police act on your behalf

00:19:04.140 to rectify that offence if you enjoyed that content and of course you did because you are

00:19:10.440 a smart person then why don't you go over to lotus eaters.com where you can watch the whole

00:19:15.480 episode for as little as five pounds a month which really is not much money at all and you get loads

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - June 02, 2026

PREVIEW： Brokenomics ｜ Free Speech Bill with Michael Reiners

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