In England, the State no longer claims to control your conscience. That would be too honest. Instead, it offers a sleight of hand: you are free to believe what you like – provided you never say it out loud. Your employer, especially if it is in the public sector, is then free to dismiss you for tone, for implications, for reputational risk – and all the while, the tribunal nods solemnly: this is not punishment for belief. Only for how you expressed it.

This legal fiction has governed most Equality Act litigation for over a decade. The case of Kristie Higgs v Farmor’s School, now on appeal to the UK Supreme Court (case no. UKSC 2025/0040), may finally bring it to an end. It asks whether an employee may be punished for the expression of a protected belief without an employer having to justify that punishment as necessary and proportionate.

If the answer is no – as it should be – the ideological enforcers who dominate public life in England may at last be constrained. The long slow counter-revolution, forecast by those of us who still believe in liberty, will have taken a meaningful step.

Kristie Higgs was a well-regarded pastoral administrator at Farmor’s School in Gloucestershire. In October 2018, she shared two Facebook posts, under her maiden name, to a closed group of friends. These posts expressed concern over relationship and sex education reforms – especially those promoting “gender fluidity” and same-sex marriage to young children.

One post linked to an article critical of the “No Outsiders” programme. The other encouraged Christians to sign a petition. The language, while firm, was not abusive. The content was clearly moral and religious in character.

A single anonymous complaint – claiming the posts were “homophobic and prejudiced” – triggered a disciplinary investigation. Higgs was suspended, interrogated, and dismissed for gross misconduct. She had never mentioned the school. She had broken no law. But the school claimed her views could damage its reputation and violate its commitment to “inclusivity.”

Higgs brought a claim for discrimination and harassment under the Equality Act 2010, which protects “religious or philosophical beliefs.” The Employment Tribunal accepted that her beliefs were protected, including her rejection of gender ideology and same-sex marriage.

But it dismissed her claim. The Tribunal reasoned that the dismissal was not because of her beliefs, but because the manner in which she expressed them “might reasonably be perceived as homophobic.” This, it said, justified dismissal. The belief was protected, but its manifestation – conveniently reframed as “tone” or “association” – was not.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal reversed this logic. It found that her Facebook posts were indeed a “manifestation of belief” (MOB), and that the school’s dismissal engaged Article 9 and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It held that dismissal due to such expression could only be lawful if it satisfied the test of objective justification.

In a major judgment handed down in February 2025, the Court of Appeal ruled decisively in Mrs Higgs’ favour. The Court found that Farmor’s School had unlawfully discriminated against her on the basis of her religious beliefs. The judgment, authored by Lord Justice Bean and Lady Justice King, is striking not only in its clarity, but in its reassertion of legal sanity.

Quoting from the official text:

The dismissal of an employee merely because they have expressed a religious or other protected belief to which the employer or service provider objects will constitute unlawful direct discrimination.

Moreover:

There is no justification in dismissing an employee for expressing protected views unless the expression is shown to be objectively objectionable in a way that is proportionate to the employer’s aims.

The Court was damning in its appraisal of the school’s conduct. It noted there was “no evidence of reputational harm,” no link between the posts and Mrs Higgs’ duties, and no proof that her students were ever exposed to the posts or her beliefs.

Her Facebook comments were, the Court found, “moderate,” “respectful,” and posted “in a personal capacity.” She had worked in the school for years without complaint.

In other words, the belief was targeted, and the sacking was punishment by another name.

Despite this, Farmor’s School is appealing to the Supreme Court. Why? Because the Court of Appeal did more than apply the Equality Act. It bound that Act tightly to the Human Rights Act – and forced employers to run their ideological purges through a legal gauntlet.

The school’s argument is this: we didn’t punish the belief; we punished the effect of its expression – the potential public reaction, the discomfort it might cause. And that is not the same thing.

This is the old OMOB dodge – “Objectively Manifested Objectionable Belief.” It tries to separate belief from expression, treating the former as legally protected and the latter as subject to managerial discretion.

The Supreme Court is being asked whether this dodge remains lawful. Specifically:

• Can an employer always avoid a finding of direct discrimination by claiming the dismissal was based on “how” the belief was expressed?
• Or must employers always pass the test of objective justification when they penalise someone for expressing a protected belief?

The Supreme Court’s answer will either shut down the dodge – or bless it as precedent.

Let us not pretend this is a private dispute. Farmor’s School is a state-funded body. Most discrimination cases of this kind arise from the NHS, schools, universities, police, and local councils. These are ideological institutions. They enforce conformity through harassment, surveillance, and dismissal.

During the present century, the British State has developed a system whereby dissent is professionally fatal. You may believe, in silence, that sex is real or marriage sacred – but if you speak, you are gone. Dismissed, struck off, denounced. The equality industry governs by fear.

If the Supreme Court backs the Court of Appeal, this will become harder. Employers will need to prove harm. Not allege it. Not feel it. Not speculate. Prove it – and justify their actions as necessary, proportionate, and lawful.

This will not be a strategic victory. But it will be a decisive limit on the culture war’s enforcers.

As argued in The Transgender Court Ruling: Warming up for Thermidor, we are witnessing the first signs of retreat. The British establishment, having waged ideological war on its own people for twenty five years, now sees that the ground beneath it is cracking. The Trump administration, with its blunt reminders of realpolitik, has embarrassed the British regime abroad. At home, the working-class vote is slipping, and dissent is no longer confined to anonymous Twitter accounts.

The judges – not objective umpires between state and citizen, but sensitive instruments of class interest – respond. They feel the pressure. They sense the factional split within the ruling order: between those who want the revolution to continue, and those who want it quietly mothballed before it explodes.

The Court of Appeal’s ruling in Higgs was not revolutionary. But it was real. And if the Supreme Court upholds it, we shall have reached a line – a constitutional signal that the cultural revolution has, at last, a boundary.

If the Supreme Court rules for Mrs Higgs, the implications will be profound. Not because it creates new freedoms – but because it restores an old one: the right to express a lawful belief without being ruined.

It will not restore the England we lost. It will not end the Equality Act. It will not stop the bureaucrats from trying to police your thoughts. But it will give us – at last – a weapon. And when a regime begins to fear the consequences of its own laws, that regime is already beginning to fall. Let the judges feel that fear. Let them confirm, at last, that belief and speech are not separate things.

Because the truth – now as ever – is that the Englishman who cannot speak his mind is no Englishman at all.