Category: free speech
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Legislating the free speech on campus culture war in the 1980s
This was originally posted on my Patreon here. This month is the 35th anniversary of the introduction of the Education (No. 2) Act 1986 which was a response by the Thatcher government to the disruptive protests on campuses in the mid-1980s which included the shutting down of talks by Conservative MPs. It is particularly prescient…
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Me in Jacobin on Australian universities and the free speech culture wars
This is just a quick post to let you all know that Jacobin Australia has published a piece by myself on the transnational free speech culture wars and the attacks on Australian universities, linking what has been happening in this country with what is happening in Britain and the US. You can read the article…
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Media platforms and social media deplatforming: Some history and context
With the decision by Twitter and Facebook to deplatform Donald Trump and other far right accounts, as well as on-going debate about the reporting on the far right by the media, I thought I’d post this excerpt from book, No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech. While it is…
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The free speech on campus culture war rages on
This was originally posted on my Patreon page over the weekend. If you enjoy my work and have the means, please subscribe and support my research/writing. In his speech to the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump repeatedly referred to ‘cancel culture’, ‘radical professors’ and ‘speech codes’ as things to be battled in the United States.…
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Nigel Biggar says I’m wrong and piece for History Workshop Online
This week has started with a bang! Over the weekend, Oxford University’s Nigel Biggar wrote a piece in The Telegraph saying that myself, as well as UCU General Secretary Jo Grady and academic Will Davies, were ‘wrong’ about the lack of academic freedom at British universities. This was on the back of Policy Exchange’s report last…
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Me on the Bunker Daily podcast
Yesterday I was interviewed by Dorian Lynskey for the Bunker Daily podcast about my book and the history of ‘no platforming’. You can listen to me talking here.
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New piece on history of RCP/Spiked in The Guardian
This is just a quick post to let you all know that The Guardian published a piece by myself on the history of the Revolutionary Communist Party and Spiked, via the journal Living Marxism. You can read the piece here. I am going to commence a larger project on the history of the Revolutionary Communist Party,…
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Anti-fascists, the British left and the David Irving libel trial
On 11 April 2000, Mr Justice Gray found in favour of Penguin Books, who had been sued for libel by David Irving after the publication of Deborah Lipstadt’s Denying the Holocaust, which stated: Irving is one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial. Familiar with historical evidence, he bends it until it conforms with…
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Oxford, ‘no platform’ and free speech battles: A short history
This week former Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who was in charge of the Home Office at the time of the Windrush scandal in 2018, was disinvited by the UNWomen Oxford Society after originally inviting Rudd to speak for International Women’s Day. According to The Guardian, Oxford’s African Caribbean Society claim that they didn’t call for…
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Forthcoming book – No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech
Very excited to end the year with the announcement that my book No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech will be published next year by Routledge as part of the Fascism and Far Right series. Here is the blurb: This book is the first to outline the history of the…
New Historical Express 