A Labour government banning left-wing activists from entering the country because they advocate for Palestine just about sums up the moral dearth of those in power in the UK today.
Bart Cammaerts is Professor of Politics and Communication and Head of the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. Cross-posted from LSE Politics Picture by Morgan.rice.bassline.design Recently, the UK’s Home Office decided to deny two prominent left wing US podcasters entry to the country. It concerns Hasan Piker, a Twitch streamer and Cenk Uygur, co-founder of the left-wing populist YouTube channel The Young Turks (TYT). They were due to speak at the South by South West Festival in London and an event at Oxford University. Allegedly , the decision to ban them entry to the country was taken by the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, after some MPs and campaigners had called for their visas to be blocked.
There was no concrete reason provided by the Home Office except referring to the Home Secretary’s prerogative to exclude individuals from the UK if they think that their presence is “not conducive to the public good because of their conduct, character, associations or other reasons”. The same justification was recently provided to refuse the antisemitic and pro-Nazi rapper Kanye West entry to the UK, as well as eleven extreme right politicians and activists who were also denied a visa to attend and speak at a Tommy Robinson rally.
There are a few observations we can draw from these punitive and restrictive actions by the Labour Government. First, freedom of speech is not absolute, different rights and protections can and should be weighed against each other, limits are set, and racist hate speech is beyond that limit. Second, the UK Government also has the right to refuse extremist individuals entry to the country and using the visa system to do so.
What these specific bans highlight though is that the criteria used to decide to ban people from entering the UK are vague and the lack of a precise justification as to why certain individuals are banned can easily lead to accusations of arbitrariness, especially since there is no right of appeal of this decision.
The two podcasters in question are by no means uncontroversial, and I personally do not agree with all their views. But the real question here is; are these views controversial enough to warrant refusing them entry to the country and thereby also denying their right to speak (at least in person)? Both Piker and Cenk happen to hold strong pro-Palestinian views and have been very outspoken, passionate and vocal about and critical of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the displacement and terrorisation of Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied territories and the West’s complicity in these war crimes and crimes against humanity. Are people who strongly and passionately speak out against this really extremists ? Or, are those defending, placating, and facilitating these crimes the real extremists?
Besides this, by banning two left wing political commentators after having refused entry to a smorgasbord of extreme right agitators in May, the Government is also constructing a (false) equivalence between extreme right and radical left views, ideas and values. In doing so, the idea is promoted that advocating for the Palestinian people, their plight and their right to self-determination is inherently an extreme position that is deemed unacceptable by the British Government.
It also suggests that condemning and critiquing Israel for their crimes against humanity, their genocidal campaign and their total disregard for international law and conventions on human rights and the conduct of war, represents an extremist view, morally on par with calling all Muslims rapists , considering being a racist as a badge of honour , writing that migrants cook domestic pets and rape cats or that white people are being replaced and advocating for massive deportations and remigration of non-whites. This equivalence that is peddled is not only preposterous and pointing to a massive overreach by the part of the Labour Government, it is also repulsive and indefensible from an ethical point of view.
Given the contemporary weaponisation of freedom of speech, the vagueness of what is and is not conducive to the public good, as well as the risk of arbitrariness and authoritarian overreach, it is very urgent to have a broad society-wide debate about what speech is protected by the right to free speech and what speech falls outside of legitimate democratic debate, as well as what not “conducive to the public good” actually means. As an influential US free amendment scholar once observed “there is little free inquiry about free inquiry and little free speech about free speech”.
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