According to The Independent, a trade agreement with the United States may depend on Britain restoring freedom of speech (Starmer told UK must repeal hate speech laws to protect LGBT+ people or lose Trump trade deal, 16^th April 2025). “Sources close to Mr Vance’s campaign,” it says, “expect serious and sustained reforms to free speech laws, including the repeal of recent legislation”. This is not an idle demand. Mr Vance is the second man in the American Government, and he may soon be the first. If this is what he says for public consumption—and “sources close to” do indicate that it is for public consumption—a British return to freedom of speech will be among the conditions of any agreement.

The British Government is not happy. It is resisting, thought not because it disapproves in principle of being told what to do from Washington—London has never had a problem copying American fashions, from banning drugs to worshipping minorities—but because censorship is no longer just a policy. It is part of the structure of power. It exists not to protect the public, but to protect the people who run the country. And in Britain today, those are not elected officials, or even political parties. They are a monied class, global in scope but headquartered here.

Britain is not a self-governing nation in the traditional sense. It is a managed jurisdiction—an administrative region controlled by a financial elite that uses it as a platform for global operations. These operations are mainly the manipulation of financial markets for the extraction of economic rents. Real estate bubbles, pension raids, shadow banking instruments, derivatives fraud—these are the tools of power, not its side-effects. The whole diplomatic and military effort of the British State has no other end than the maintenance of a world order that benefits the monied interest.

For this arrangement to continue, Britain needs to be stable. This is not the same as strong. Real national strength is not only superfluous but a danger to the monied interest. Stable means passive at home, though dangerous abroad when called on. And the preferred method for ensuring this stability has been the controlled weakening of the native population. Mass immigration, political correctness, wokery, deindustrialisation—these are not mistakes of policy, but systems of management. You weaken national identity, demoralise men, fragment the population, and flood the country with foreign dependents who know nothing of liberty. You praise the result as diversity, and continue milking the productivity of others.

The goal is not to destroy Britain. It is to render Britain incapable of resistance. The citizen becomes a supplicant. The nation becomes a service hub. The Government becomes a security service for corporate rentiers. Censorship is not a bug in this system. It is a feature. It ensures that no-one notices what is happening—or, if he does, that he is too scared to complain.

But the strategy has backfired. Britain has been weakened so thoroughly—economically, socially, militarily—that its usefulness to the ruling class is now in doubt. Our armed forces are barely capable of projecting power. Our diplomatic influence is diminished. Our industrial base has collapsed. Our cities are fractured into zones of mutual suspicion. The cost of keeping the whole mess from exploding is rising by the day.

If this were simply an internal matter, it would not matter. But it is not. The financial elite uses Britain as a base for its global activities. The crime and rising chaos in themselves could be dealt with by a move for the ruling from scattered mansions to gated communities. But the more Britain collapses internally, the weaker grows the capacity of the British State to enforce the international order on which the ruling class depends for the continued flow of free money. In particular, China and Russia have broken free from the “rules-based” order that was imposed on the world after 1990.

There is talk, for the first time in a generation, of instability. What was once described as a “mature democracy” now shows all the signs of pre-collapse fragility. Protest is increasingly criminalised. Law enforcement is selective. Public trust in elections is eroding. And the use of “hate crime” laws to silence dissent has begun to produce martyrs rather than compliance. The policies used to produce stable obedience are instead producing simmering hatred and a growing paralysis of the British State.

This brings me to my key point—one that explains the situation not just in Britain, but also in America, which is held in a similar fashion by its own monied interest. The British and American ruling classes are split. Or it may be better to say that the Anglo-American ruling class is split. It is split not on ends, but on means. What may be called the Clinton-Blair-Obama-Starmer faction—though these men had no agency except as front men for the largely invisible power of others—believes the strategy of weakening society must continue. This means more immigration, more censorship, more surveillance, more degeneracy in the wider sense.

But another faction, now fronted by Trump and Vance, has drawn a different conclusion. This believes the strategy has gone too far. It do not want to reverse the revolution—it wants to stabilise it. It wants a Thermidor. As in 1794, it is trying to bring on the moment when the radicals can be purged and the system moderated—not to restore the old order, but to save the new one. That is what Donald Trump represents. He is the agent of men who do not oppose global oligarchy. They support it. But they also see the need for functioning societies to protect a global oligarchy. They want young white men who are willing to fight wars. They want an economy that can produce weapons. They want borders that keep out the undesirables. They want their subjects to believe in something, even if that belief is manufactured. This is a new regime of tactical realism. It is not a restoration. It is a repair.

Britain now faces the same question: continue down the road to collapse, or make the system stable enough to survive another decade. The Starmer Government has no appetite for freedom. But it does have an appetite for survival. And so it may soon be forced to liberalise—not because it believes in liberty, but because the cost of repression is rising, and at least the American branch of its masters is demanding change.

How how can it do this without humiliation? It cannot repeal the Online Safety Act. It cannot roll back the Equalities Act. It cannot apologise to those it has imprisoned, or reverse the convictions. It cannot admit that it has been using fake laws to punish real truths. To do any of this would be to confess error, and to empower those it has silenced.

The solution, I suggest, lies not in repeal, but in reinterpretation. Let me explain this by looking at the Equalities Act 2010. This Act is not the whole of Britain’s censorship regime. It does not even mention censorship. But it is an important part of the whole regime. It establishes these “protected characteristics—

(a) age;
(b) disability;
(c) gender reassignment;
(d) marriage and civil partnership;
(e) pregnancy and maternity;
(f) race;
(g) religion or belief;
(h) sex;
(i) sexual orientation.

It then prohibits discrimination against anyone who can show that he comes within any of these characteristics. It does not explicitly justify censorship, but it enables it by giving public bodies, employers, and courts wide discretion to judge what counts as a protected characteristic—and by implication, what does not. The Act’s supposed end is to protect individuals from discrimination on the basis of their protected characteristics. Its effect has been to encourage suppression of dissent and enforce ideological conformity.

It does this by creating multiple civil causes of action, including claims for direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, harassment, and victimisation, each based on a person’s “protected characteristic.” These are not abstract principles—they are legal triggers that allow individuals to sue employers, schools, universities, service providers, and public bodies for substantial damages. Critically, these causes of action do not always require proof of intent or even objective harm. In many cases, it is enough that someone perceives a hostile environment, or claims that his dignity was violated.

This has created a powerful incentive for large organisations to censor opinion—not because the law requires it directly, but because the risk of litigation has become intolerable. A single comment, joke, tweet, or event might lead to a formal complaint. Even if the complaint fails, the legal process itself is costly and damaging to reputation. For this reason, employers and institutions adopt a “zero risk” approach, clamping down on anything that might conceivably lead to a claim.

For example, an employer might receive an internal report that one employee holds gender-critical views. Rather than risk a harassment claim from a “trans-identifying” colleague, HR may launch an investigation, issue a warning, or dismiss the employee. The Equality Act does not demand this—but the fear of losing a tribunal case (or simply of being seen to have failed in its “equality duty”) makes it the easiest option. Similarly, a university might cancel a speaker who challenges multiculturalism or criticises immigration—not because such views are illegal, but because they could be construed as “harassment” or “creating an offensive environment” on the grounds of race or religion.

The ambiguity of the Act makes things worse. That uncertainty encourages defensive overreach. When in doubt, it is always safer to side with the most sensitive complainant, to suppress the most controversial speaker, and to take the most cautious interpretation of policy. The result is a culture of pre-emptive censorship, not because the law explicitly bans opinions, but because it makes expressing them legally hazardous.

In this way, the causes of action created by the Act function not as balanced protections, but as weapons of institutional control. They shift power from individuals and communities to risk-averse bureaucracies. And they transform laws that were supposed to prevent unfair treatment into tools for punishing legitimate—and often necessary—debate.

All this being said, what gives the Act its power also gives it its weakness. It is so vaguely written—so dependent on judicial discretion—that its effects can be radically altered without formal repeal. Section 10 of the Act defines “religion or belief” as a protected characteristic. Subsection (2) specifies that “‘belief’ means any religious or philosophical belief.” This is broad language. It has already been interpreted by the courts to protect the ethical veganism of a man who refused to invest his pension contributions in companies that used animal products. It has protected a Unitarian minister who objected to gay marriage on spiritual grounds. It has even been stretched to cover beliefs about climate change and Scottish independence.

There is no compelling legal reason why it could not also be interpreted to protect political opinions—particularly those which form part of a coherent moral or philosophical worldview. Indeed, several decisions from employment tribunals have already gestured in this direction. In the case of Maya Forstater, who lost her job after tweeting that sex is biological and cannot be changed, the Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that gender-critical beliefs were “worthy of respect in a democratic society.” The implication was that holding such beliefs, and expressing them in a measured way, could not be a basis for dismissal.

This principle could be extended. If belief in biological sex is protected, then so should be belief in the traditional family. So should belief in national identity. So should belief in free markets, limited government, the right to bear arms, the superiority of Western civilisation, and any number of views that are now treated as excuses for dismissal. With a single interpretive shift—implemented through judicial guidance or revised statutory codes—the Equalities Act could be transformed from a tool of suppression into a weapon of defence.

Employers would no longer be able to sack workers for private Facebook posts. Charities could not be deregistered for holding “inappropriate” views on gender. Teachers could not be sanctioned for refusing to call a boy “she.” Students could not be expelled for opposing diversity mandates. Public spaces could not be denied to political groups on the grounds that their beliefs are “controversial.” And the police—no longer sure that their actions would stand up in court—would be less likely to interrogate the elderly for praying silently near an abortion clinic, or for quoting Enoch Powell in a WhatsApp group.

This could be done without new legislation. The Government would not have to repeal any law. It would not have to confront its activist base. It would not even need to explain what it was doing. A quiet note to the Civil Service Legal Directorate, a shift in Home Office training materials, a revised code of practice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission—and the landscape would begin to change.

This would not solve every problem. There are many other laws that explicitly allow censorship. And the culture of censorship is not purely legal. It is also bureaucratic, institutional, and psychological. But remove the fear of civil litigation, and many institutions would retreat from their current aggressiveness. The other laws would remain. The quangos would still be funded. The activists would still be in employment. But the levers of power would be jammed. The institutions would be cautious. The costs of enforcement would rise. And over time, the fear the system depends on would begin to dissipate.

Indeed, any limited protection of free expression would create a protected space from which demands could be made for more.

Let me repeat and expand on why this approach is attractive.

First, it allows the Government to retreat without admitting defeat. Ministers could claim they are simply enforcing the law, as interpreted by the courts. They could pose as defenders of balance and reason. The liberalisation could be blamed on judges. That the judges in this country are as much a part of the system as they were in East Germany could be denied, just as it is now. The Ministers could make inspiring speeches about autonomous institutions.

Second, it avoids alienating the regime’s activist base. The Labour Party depends on a coalition of special interests—many of whom are vocally in favour of censorship. A public repeal of censorship laws would provoke rebellion. But a quiet change in how those laws are applied? That might pass without effective opposition.

Third, it would satisfy American demands. A Trump-Vance administration will not care how freedom of speech is restored. It will care only that it is. If Britain can show that dissidents are no longer being arrested, that lawful protest is being tolerated, and that political expression is protected, it will be enough.

Fourth, it buys time. The system is not ready for full liberty. But it may be ready for controlled dissent. A loosening of the leash might allow the regime to re-establish legitimacy—or at least to catch its breath.

Fifth, censorship is plainly failing. Because we speak English, and because our Internet is not yet firewalled like China’s, every banned idea is already available. In this sense, British dissidents piggyback on the American First Amendment. Whatever is allowed in America can be seen and read here. The truth, however inconvenient, is never more than a few clicks away. The Starmer Government cannot un-invent social media, VPNs, or file-sharing services. A successful censorship regime in Britain would require not just Internet shutdowns, but door-to-door confiscation of telephones and laptops. This will not happen.

Britain is not about to become free. But it is no longer possible to keep it as unfree as it has become. The censorship regime has failed. It failed because the technology made control impossible. It failed because its own architects lost their nerve. And it failed because a rival faction of the elite has decided it must fail. Now the question is not whether there will be a liberalisation, but how it will happen—and what we do with it.