Editor: Your CV is impressive: a first from Oxford, and various editorships and enterprises to your name. You are described as a journalist, social commentator, author to name but a few – how do you see yourself?
Toby Young: I usually describe myself as a journalist, but I’m also an entrepreneur in that I helped set up four free schools, the Free Speech Union and launched a news website in 2020 called the Daily Sceptic.
Editor: For those of our readers who may not be in the loop, could you tell us about the Free Speech Union, and your reasons for establishing it?
Toby Young: The Free Speech Union is a mass membership, non-partisan, public interest body that stands up for the speech rights of its members and campaigns for free speech more widely. I set it up in February 2020 and it now has 9,000+ members and 13 employees. In the past two years we’ve helped over 1,000 people who’ve been penalised in some way for exercising their lawful right to free speech.
Editor: Two years on, how are things now – are you inundated with cases?
Toby Young: Yes, we’re inundated. We get about 50 requests for help a week and end up helping about half of them. But case work isn’t the only thing we do. We also have an education and events arm, and a research and lobbying arm.
Editor: As someone who has directly experienced the viciousness of cancel culture, how do you see the general state of free expression in Britain?
Toby Young: I set up the Free Speech Union two years ago because I was concerned about the erosion of free speech and in the past two years things have got much, much worse. Back then, about half a dozen people were cancelled every week; now, it’s about half a dozen a day. The Government has brought forward a Bill to strengthen free speech in English universities – the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill – but there are other Bills going through Parliament that will further erode free speech, such as the Online Safety Bill. Things are going to get worse – a lot worse – before they get better.
Editor: Does that make you optimistic for the future, or do you think we’re on the losing side?
Toby Young: We keep winning individual battles, but I fear we’re losing the war. For instance, the Hate Crime and Public Order Act (Scotland) 2021, which received Royal Assent last year, has created a whole new raft of speech crimes north of the border and we’re likely to see similar pieces of legislation in the rest of the UK. Northern Ireland is currently consulting about a Hate Crime and Public Order Bill that is almost identical to the Scottish one and the Law Commission of England and Wales has proposed a similar Bill for England and Wales that would actually go further than the Scottish Act. We’re doing our best to fight all of the above, but we’re just one organisation ranged against the government in Westminster and the regional governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as a vast bureaucratic apparatus and all the academics, charities and lobby groups linked to those politicians and officials, all pushing in the same anti-free speech direction. And that’s just one of dozens and dozens of battles we’re fighting.
Editor: Let’s talk about the government – as someone who knows Boris Johnson personally, how long do you think he remains in power?
Toby Young: I think he’ll lead the Conservative Party into the next General Election and possibly the one after that.
Editor: Despite its majority of 80, and its opportunity post-Brexit to ‘fix’ a lot of Britain’s problems, how conservative do you think this government really is?
Toby Young: About as conservative as other conservative governments across the world, which is to say, not very. I think it’s very difficult for conservative governments to do anything properly conservative because they’re operating in hyper liberal environments in which all the unelected people in positions of power will oppose anything they do that they disapprove of. Elected politicians in countries like Britain have very little real power.
Editor: Do you think there is room for a more traditional conservative Party at the next election?
Toby Young: It’s possible a party to the right of the Conservatives Party could gain enough electoral support to push the Party in a rightwards direction, but there isn’t a single issue, like our membership of the EU, to galvanise support around.
Editor: Are you dismayed by the reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
Toby Young: Dismayed by the support people in Britain are showing for the Ukrainians? No. I’m used to feeling out of step with the overwhelming political consensus on most issues, but not on this one. Or do you mean do I want the Government to go further? I think it’s a ’no’ on that too. If Britain and its NATO allies enforced a no-fly zone that would be interpreted by Putin as a declaration of war on Russia and the conflict would escalate. I don’t want Russian news organisations like RT and Sputnik to be censored and I don’t want to see a cultural boycott of Russia either. Free speech is one of the things the Ukrainians are fighting for so suppressing free speech in Britain to show our support for them would be self-defeating.
Editor: Lastly, what is the best way for our readers to follow your work and support you?
Toby Young: I write a weekly column for the Spectator, but apart from that the best way to support me would be to join the Free Speech Union here (www.freespeechunion.org/join/) and subscribe to the Daily Sceptic (www.dailysceptic.org).
