Labour’s betrayal of free speech has had devastating consequences

Cambridge University
Cambridge University - Aubrey Stoll

So here we are again. A distinguished visitor has been excluded from participating in university life for the crime of holding conservative views. Once again, far-Left activists have succeeded in dictating what speech is permissible at the alma mater of John Milton and Bertrand Russell.

Once again, the crisis of free speech in higher education that university leaders and government ministers had insisted was a feverish fantasy of Right-wing culture warriors is evident for all to see.

This week’s target was the Cambridge University Conservative Association (CUCA), which had decided to inaugurate its annual program at Corpus Christi College by hosting Suella Braverman, sometime president of CUCA and a former holder of one of the Great Offices of State. By any measure she is one of the most high-achieving alumnae of her generation at Cambridge.

The day before the event was due to take place, representatives of “Cambridge for Palestine” issued an alarming call to arms that was plainly designed to intimidate the event’s organisers and its prospective attendees.

Several members of the college staff, understandably distressed at the prospect of protesters descending on the college, were given permission to head home early. The students attempted to switch venues to the Cambridge Union, but the police urged them to cancel the event on the basis that it could not guarantee sufficient protection for both Braverman and the six parliamentarians attending a separate event.

It is tempting to put this down to snowflakery among Cambridge students, but the reality is more sinister than that. The protesters seem largely to have been far-Left agitators with no connection to the university beyond their shadowy role in the “Cambridge Encampment for Palestine” that scarred the city’s most scenic thoroughfare earlier this year and forced the university to relocate its graduation ceremonies for the first time in 300 years.

And although the protesters achieved their goal of silencing Braverman this week, the undergraduates running CUCA are determined to replatform her later in the term, no doubt in front of a much larger audience. And, judging by the new Vice-Chancellor’s public pronouncements on the importance of free inquiry, with robust support from the university authorities.

But this sorry affair has been a painful reminder of the consequences of the decision by the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson to block the implementation of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, a move that has been roundly condemned by hundreds of academics, including seven Nobel Laureates. Her justification for the decision was that the legislation would protect anti-Semitic speech on campus and Holocaust denial in particular.

But that fear was repeatedly dissected and diffused in parliamentary debate and by every leading legal specialist who was consulted about it. The legislation expressly aligns its definition of freedom of speech with the European Convention on Human Rights, which under Article 17 specifically permits the exclusion of Holocaust denial from the right to legal protection.

Far from exacerbating antisemitism on campus, the legislation would confer far stronger protections on Jewish students and academics wanting to hold their own events without the fear of being shut down.

Indeed it is almost certain that one factor motivating Braverman’s cancellation this week was her vocal defence of Israel and her persistent criticisms of the rise of antisemitism since the attack on Israeli civilians on October 7 last year.

Had Phillipson not prevented the legislation from being implemented, CUCA would have been able to pass on the substantial security costs to the relevant authorities or, failing that, lodge an appeal with the Office for Students that would have ensured adequate security measures were available in the future.

As things stand, however, campus protesters enjoy a heckler’s veto, provided they intimidate those with whom they disagree aggressively enough to require the level of protection that few student societies could be expected to afford.

Britain continues to lead the world in higher education. Earlier this week the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2025 ranked three of its universities in the top ten in the world and seven of them in the top fifty.

British universities can, moreover, justifiably claim that students and academics enjoy a far stronger culture of academic freedom than their competitors in China and North America. But they are unlikely to succeed in protecting that culture against the censorship and intimidation on display in Cambridge this week without the statutory protections that the government seems so determined to undermine.