Britain: The real issues in the Oxford Union "free speech" debate

Had it been genuinely conceived of as a debate on the very real danger represented by censorship, it could only have been welcomed.

One of those invited to speak was Des Browne, Labour’s Defence Secretary. He represents a government that has passed a barrage of anti-democratic legislation that has enshrined state censorship to such a degree that it has created a new category of thought crime. Under anti-terror legislation, it is now illegal to even view material that is alleged to be supportive of terrorism, and the weeks leading up to the debate saw several Muslims imprisoned on these grounds.

The OU, however, chose to centre its supposed defence of free speech on legislation enacted by the government against incitement to religious hatred. This was apparently the grounds on which it invited Griffin and Irving to speak.

In February 2006, Griffin and party member Mark Collett were unsuccessfully prosecuted for incitement to religious hatred after they were secretly filmed by a BBC reporter referring to Islam as a “wicked, vicious faith,” claiming that white girls were being groomed for sex by Muslim men, and denouncing Asians for “trying to destroy us.”