EDI Dominoes Start to Fall

We briefly discuss last Saturday’s Manchester event on free expression in football, before moving on to a recent victory for workplace free speech that was reported in The Telegraph. The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) has scrapped controversial plans to force its 32,000 members — including 15,000 student members and 46 partner universities — to "encourage diversity, equity and inclusion" in all aspects of their professional and personal lives. The Free Speech Union responded to both of the IFoA’s consultations on equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and we take the opportunity to discuss the best strategies for tackling these kind of free speech codes in other contexts. Also reported last week in The Telegraph, claims of ‘two-tier’ policing are, according to an internal Home Office report, an ‘extreme right-wing narrative’. We know about the Home Office report not because it was published, but because it was leaked to the think tank Policy Exchange, which rightly pointed out that some of the definitions of extremism threaten free speech, defining aspects of normal and legitimate political debate as extremist. We end with Jan’s regular report on upcoming FSU events plus the good news of Toby Young’s introduction to the House of Lords on Tuesday 28th January, alongside the FSU’s Chairman, Lord Biggar.

‘That's Debatable!’  is edited by Jason Clift.