Climate change policies will only widen the gap between the rich and the poor on air 24/7. We are today's news talk TNT. And welcome back to the Patrick Henderson show with me, Basil Valentine, sitting here for Patrick today, Friday the 9th of August. Now this morning, Thomas Harris of the Free Speech Union was on the Lembit Opique show. We only got a chance to scratch the surface of some of the issues through a risen out of the communal violence, the only way of describing it, really, that's erupted in Britain over the last couple of weeks. Welcome to the program, Tom. Thank you, Basil. It's good to speak to you again. Now, further updates since this morning, Keir Starmer has confirmed that the online safety act will be reviewed according to the Guardian after far-right riots. The remarks follow concerned about the role of misinformation in the unrest and come as people are being jailed for inciting violence online. Now, inciting violence was a criminal offense long before the online safety act. So the Prime Minister said social media was not a law-free zone during a visit to a police station on Friday hours before two men were jailed for encouraging people on social media to attack hotels, housing asylum seekers. But encouraging people to attack property, that's always been a criminal offense. I'm not quite sure why the government are so intent on curbing social media, Tom. Well, this is exactly the point, Basil. I mean, we have so much law already that effectively does curb social media. And what I've tried to find really between the lines of the news moving so fast today, with the mayor saying it's not fit for purpose or it needs to be reviewed, is what exactly, what power or what offense is missing from the law as we already have it. As we briefly mentioned this morning, we've got the public order act. We've got the Communications Act 2003. And now we've got the online Safety Act 2023. And what I think we're worried about the Free Speech Union, we campaigned vigorously and for a long time to get rid of what was called lawful but harmful content, which was poorly defined clearly. It's lawful content. But in some way, it was deemed harmful. And we managed to get rid of the word harmful out of this act. And instead, there are two new new offenses, false communications and threatening communications, which are kind of, we're still not completely comfortable that they're really well defined, but they're better than the sort of hurty, wordy view that comes with a harmful offense. And so our fear is that all of those things that we campaigned to get rid and out of the law are going to come straight back in. But it's not clear what difference it would make. What protection of vulnerable people or people who might be subject to incitement to violence, what protection is there not already that it's being called for? So it's really rather mysterious and foggy, I have to say, Basil. No, absolutely. And it seems since the Labour government in a pitched battle against one of the world's richest men, Elon Musk. Now, Musk hasn't done himself any favors by sharing this fake telegraph article, saying that Kia Stama was considering sending rioters to emergency detainment camps in the Falklands Islands in an article first posted by Ashley Simon, co-leader of Britain first. I mean, you should have checked his facts on that facts on that one, because it's precisely that kind of thing, that sort of misinformation that fuels calls for censorship. And I'd add to that and say, look, in the online safety act 2023, one of the new offenses is a false communications offense. And it's committed if the message conveys information that is known to be false and was intended or is intended to cause non-trivial psychological harm. Now, obviously, in this case, I'm not sure it would meet all of those requirements, which are obviously good protections to make sure not everything gets caught by this new offense. But that is there. It's in the law already. This came into force in January. So false communications offenses are operative. And so I agree with you. It wasn't helpful for Elon Musk's case that that happened. I understand he removed the piece of information or did the tweet quite quickly. But of course, Elon Musk being Elon Musk, this moves rapidly. I mean, it only needs to stay up a couple of seconds and someone will screenshot it. But I would come back to what's already in the law. And this new offense is there and is there for exactly these sorts of situations. So I'm still bewildered as to what's going to change. Yeah, we talked about the border line between literal interpretations of misinformation, of shouting in the street, as in the case with Councillor Jones, or of course, borderline satire. And I didn't see that telegraph article at the time. If I had, I would have laughed it off. The idea that Kia Stama would be sending rioters to the Falkland Islands, I mean, it's something straight out of the pages of private iron words still around the Babylon B or something. Nobody could really take that seriously. And yeah, everybody's got their knickers in a massive twist about it. And the first thing that Kia Stama did was scrap or one of the first things was scrap the Rwanda plan. So I'd be extraordinarily surprised if the Rwanda plan was replaced with the Falklands plan that just doesn't seem to add up. So I agree with you. It ought to be relatively self evident that that was a either satirical or someone being very, very silly. But you know, I just come back to this. We also said this morning, you know, what problems would would a ban on anonymity so that things get posted anonymously? What would that have? And the idea of repressive regimes is something we didn't talk about, but repressive regimes like Hong Kong protesters or Iranian protesters. They have their operators working on British soil. So anonymity is absolutely key for their safety. So there's so many issues that are currently being discussed at pace in the public square. And I feel that, you know, it took two years for the online safety act to come in. It needs to be done calmly. All law changes, they need to be done thoughtfully, and they need to be done rationally. And it just feels we're in a very febrile moment. And that's what worries me, I think. It has to be said, Basil. That's precisely the word I was going to use, febrile, you know, the weather's hotting up again this weekend. The football season is starting on Saturday in the championship clubs. And 6,000 riot officers are being deployed nationwide against the potential for further violence. Meanwhile, Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions in England and Wales, has said police officers are scouring social media for material inciting racial hatred, something that first became an offense back in the 1970s, I believe. This is actually happening, Musk said. It's calling Parkinson the woke starting. I think Musk's being a bit harsh there. I mean, the last thing we need is anybody stirring up racial hatred in Britain. But something that has been mooted is a legal definition of Islamophobia, and that then may become a criminal offense in a novice self. That's a lot more problematic, isn't it? Oh, yes. So this is the all party parliamentary group definition of Islamophobia, which is from a free speech perspective, extremely chilling. I mean, what it effectively does, this definition, it's a very brief definition. It's something along the lines of Islamophobia is rooted in racism, and there's a type of racism that targets expressions of muslimness or perceived muslimness. Okay. But the examples that went in underneath that definition clearly muddle up religion and race. And there was a paper done by Tim Dieck that's on our website that makes this point with a foreword, by the way, by Professor Richard Dawkins. So you've got the secularists and the Christians making this same point that this definition is muddling up race and religion. And just to give you one example, Basil, it's often that historians write about how Islam spread in the seventh century. And a lot of most historians agree that it's a lot of that fast spreading of Islam was originally by the sword. It was a violent time. The first millennium after Christ was a violent time. So it's not a surprise. We had our share of it on these shores, Tom. We had our share of it on these shores. We had the conquest and a few Roman legions. And yeah, under this different. Saxon and dukes viking. You name it. It was a bloodbath for centuries. It really was. That was the nature of the dark ages. And yet historians writing about how Islam was spread in the seventh century are at risk of falling foul of this law, because one of the examples is accusing Muslim citizens or sorry, using the symbols and the images associated with classic Islamophobia, e.g. claims of Muslim spreading Islam by the sword. So historians are at risk. This is crazy. And even more sort of generically, we mock the person of Christ. People may not like it. If you, you know, if you're a Bible believe in Christian or or or or or any kind of Christian, you, you don't like that to happen or or people mock, you know, the prophet Moses and Ezekiel, or whoever it was. And they're all sorts of things. But we're not allowed effectively under this definition then to mock the prophet Muhammad or certain elements of the religion itself, you know, historical figures who are key to the religion of Islam. And there's no such thing as Christophobia either. So, you know, there are all sorts of terribly chilling effects to free speech, which a lot of your listeners and viewers will be very familiar with. If this definition comes in, people are going to be scared to say anything that it comes close to criticizing the religion, as well as quite rightly, not going in for anti Muslim hatred, which is the word that I think Kermit Badennot prefers to use anti Muslim hatred. That's clearly abhorrent. That's clearly abhorrent. And that is a form of racism. But all of the things I just sort of listed there are very, very different indeed. And that is our worry. Yes, there's this ill defined line, particularly with contemporary legislation between pointed critique and hatred. It's as if government lawyers or those drafting legislation really don't have the intellectual capacity to understand the difference between the two. One can be an extremely sharp critic of something, political institution, religion, policy measure, whatever you like, without it lapsing into the emotion of hatred and wanting to destroy it of these two very different things. But it seems legislation is created these days with a sledgehammer rather than a quill pen, Tom. The secular society say that supporting targeted communities doesn't necessitate endorsing a flawed definition of Islamophobia, which the government is facing renewed calls to adopt. Quite the opposite adopting the definition may well make matters worse. And I fear in terms of the mobs on the streets that Tommy Robinson and his ill car being what whipped up into the frenzy, they will think, Oh, Muslims are being privileged and protected, and it'll be another example of the two-tier society, crystallities per game. But now Muslims are going to be an entirely protected class. It's not going to go down well. It's not going to go down well. It's going to get weaponized on both sides. And I wonder whether someone like Christopher Hitren's God Rest His Soul would get arrested today for Islamophobia. He loved many of his friends were Muslim, and he loved the history, and he was very up to date with the history of Islam. He fully understood the internal conflicts within the Islamic world, the fact that there are actually, they're not all surprise, surprise. It's not just a homogenous group. It's an ancient civilization. And within Islam, there are many different elements and factions and debates and nuances within the religion. You wouldn't know it, reading something like the APP Jeff definition of Islamophobia, which will absolutely get used on both sides or multiple sides when there's tension to make things worse. So it is blasphemy by the backdoor is what we fear. The Islamophobia report that the previous government commission was co-authored by former Labor MP, Khalid Mahmud, and was published in April, in outline how the definition has already been wielded as a weapon to silence those accused of offending Islamic sensibilities. And the former home secretary, Sadid Javed, argued that adopting the definition was risk creating blasphemy law via the backdoor. I mean, we can't go down this road. I'm reading from the secular society's website. And with good reason, because we, if we do overcome these differences in the decades ahead, then we need a secular approach to Britain, rather than the enshrining of anybody's religious beliefs in some kind of special protected status. Yeah, well, the paper I referenced that's on our website, Free Speech Union.org's website, was written by Tim Deat of Christian Concern. I really find it interesting that this fear is shared by Christians and by the National Secular Society, and now working together to make plain the issues with this definition, which, by the way, has swept into political parties. So the Labour Party has accepted it. I think the Liberal Party has accepted it. The Conservatives haven't accepted it. So, you know, it's already made a huge inroads. I think some local councils have as well. So it's made huge inroads into important parts of our institutional furniture. If it is then in some way brought in to statute for all of us, that would be a very dark day for Free Speech. We're going to take a short break for the headlines. Don't go away. I'll be right back with more from Tom Harris of the Free Speech Union. Now, C-N-T Radio News. I have huge news. Are you ready for it? Do it. For TNT, this is James O'Neill. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is called for the safety and protection of minority Hindus in Bangladesh and made widespread unrest following the Astra former Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina. Russia's ambassador to Washington, Anna Toliantinov, deserves the US to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine after American supplied arms were used in strikes on civilian targets in Russia's Kursk region. The Japan Meteorological Agency issued its first-ever mega earthquake caution, following magnitude 7.1 earthquake off the coast of Kyushu. Why not give TNT Radio a follow? We're on all major social platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Gabb, and Getter. Help us get the word out as we cover the biggest topics of our time right here on today's news talk. TNT Radio. TNT Radio. And welcome back to the Patrick Henderson show with me, Bazar Valentine, sitting in today Friday the night of August. I'm delighted to say I'm joined online by Tom Harris of the Free Speech Union. Tom, we spoke in the back channel there about the covid era, Ferrago, the beginning of the end of free speech in Britain, according to many people. It really was at the most bizarre time when simply asking questions suddenly made you a dissident. I'm very pleased to say there's been considerable push back against that since that particular fast, black fast, came to an end. And I think a lot of people that pushed for censorship at that time have come to regret it, but you wouldn't know that from the official workings of government who are simply sort of doubling down on the official narrative. That's absolutely right, Basil. So what we found out over this period of the last two weeks, this civil unrest, is that what used to be called in the covid era. And yet it is a painful thing to go back to those days and to remember the control over information from those days. What was called the counter disinformation unit, it's been rebranded as the national security online information team, which I don't think is a snappy to be honest, the NSO team, but the less snappy than the more insidious it feels, and the more pernicious what they get up to feels, but it's certainly very shadow. And the national security counter disinformation is it? So there's the national security online information team, NSO. I suppose. One could call it. Now, this is exactly the same unit, but it's been reanimated in the last fortnight. It's been brought back to life. It's in zombie mode. And well, hopefully it's in zombie mode. We want it, we want it gone ultimately, but it has no statutory standing. It recently, there was a committee, a parliamentary committee, the House of Commons culture media and sport committee, they questioned the lack of transparency and accountability of what had been the counter disinformation unit and the appropriateness of its reach and recommended an independent review of its activities and strategy. So with all of that background, no statutory standing being questioned very closely and worryingly from that parliamentary committee, it's now been quietly reanimated. And it's just meant to be monitoring things. Now, you can understand there might be perfect justification for understanding things that are obviously illegal, like incitement to violence. But what we found from the COVID era is that flagging for removal of posts that actually fall well within the law. And we ended up with that. I can't remember what the name was, that sort of censorship industrial complex. That was the phrase, wasn't it, that came to light after the COVID era. And do we really believe that these units have learned and changed their ways is the question. So from a free speech perspective, it's very worrying. And my last thought on this, Basil, is the big brother watch who do similar work to us, they would look out for things that are encroaching on our freedom. They kind of listed how many of these types of units are now operating in government. And not only do we have this ensoit, which is not snappy, but there's the intelligence communications unit in the home office, then there's the cabinet unit offices, rapid response unit since disbanded according to the government. And then there's the 77th Brigade within the Ministry of Defense. So we got all of these groundwork units. Yeah, and particularly the 77th Brigade. I think they're actively involved in their own mis and disinformation campaigns. What is that a knock at the door? Yeah, it could well be, but it'd be very careful what you say. They'll be rounding up dissidents before long. Are we even allowed to talk about them? Now, what is going to happen in the near future is that off-comm is going to have the power to find social media companies up to £18 million or 10% of their global turnover. If they fail to take robust action against illegal content, inciting violence or terrorism, that amounts to, well, a lot more than £18 million in excess case, doesn't it? Oh, yeah. And this has similar, this resonates with the GDP or penalties and fines, which are again a percentage of revenue. And if you're a giant, huge social media company, as you say, like X or Facebook matter, it's a huge number. And for any organization, it's a number that hurts, and it could be existential for certain organizations. So, you know, it's almost the fear would be, some would just say it's too much bother. It's too much bother. We're just going to up and leave this particular jurisdiction. So, yeah, it's always this thing, the balance between the amount of money you're going to find people versus making a proper penalty, a proportionate, because if it was just a hundred quid, obviously it wouldn't matter to X or Twitter. But I think that the stepping back from that is some of what we talked about today. Basel is the stuff that's being pinpointed is perfectly legal, but in some weird sense is deemed harmful. If it's illegal and inciting the violence, then absolutely it should be got rid of, taken down, and people protected from it. There are vulnerable people in society. Of course. Finally, Tom, in spite of the pinstripe shirt, I'm not actually a Tory far from it. The complexion of the House of Commons has changed dramatically. And there were at least some libertarian conservative MPs whose ear the free speech union had. I'm not sure whether that's going to be the case now that we have, you know, literally hundreds of a newly minty labor MPs whose tendencies tend to be rather about social engineering and lapsing into authoritarianism rather than libertarianism. So I mean, I therefore the influence of the SFSU possibly diminished in the new parliament. Certainly it's changed. So it's a really good point. You know, you're right. We had the ear of ministers. We were much closer to ministers. I'd say three things. First of all, let's get through this Tory leadership as fast as possible. And actually then we can reconnect with a shadow cabinet that's really well better defined than it is today, because it's all a bit haywire at the moment. Second of all, I'd say there are free speech lovers in the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats. So there are connections still. I remember many times I've been to sort of events that have included cross party members of parliament. And of course, there's the House of Lords. Now with a chamber like the shape that it is, and if it's in the free speech or it wasn't, it was in the King's speech. And it was in the manifesto. Labour can push this through and the Lords won't push back hard. They'll amend, but they won't push back on whether or not there should be whatever the Labour government want to do. But the Lords is another place where we could have influence. So I would say those three things. Let's get a new leader in of the opposition, a new shadow cabinet that we can influence and have a proper opposition. Let's work with the freedom lovers on the front benches or on the government benches. And thirdly, let's get back into the House of Lords and influence from there. So there is still a lot of work to be done, but we've got a lot of people joining up actually. That's all over the last few days, which is great, but also depressing in a sense, because it means we have free speech troubles. Indeed, we do. Let's keep the flame burning. We always do here on today's news talk, Tom. We are the beacon of free speech in an increasingly muddy media landscape. Thanks so much for joining us today, Tom Harris. My pleasure. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. There he goes. Have a great weekend. We're going to take a short break now. And when we come back, I'll be joined by former candidate for mayor in greater Manchester, Nick Buckley, MBE to discuss some of the social problems underlying the recent violence. We'll be right back. We don't rock. We talk. Today's news talk. D and T radio.
