The debate so far:

• Marian Halcombe, The Peter Tatchell Foundation: Attack Dogs of an Authoritarian State, 5^th September 2025
• Peter Tatchell, Attack Dogs of an Authoritarian State: Peter Tatchell Replies, 11^th September 2025
• Marian Halcombe, Reply to Peter Tatchell, 11^th September 2025

The Peter Tatchell Foundation has again discovered that the best way to fight bigotry is to imitate it. Chick-fil-A, we are told, is “operating from a secret office at 81 High Holborn,” without a brass plaque and without the courtesy of a press release. In other words, it has rented a room and failed to seek Peter’s approval before putting up curtains. The Foundation has reacted with all the solemnity of MI5 uncovering a Soviet spy ring. A dozen campaigners waved placards; Tatchell himself handed in a letter; the whole charade was photographed and circulated to journalists as if it were the storming of the Winter Palace.

Let me begin with a point of agreement. Boycotts are legitimate. If you dislike Chick-fil-A’s donations or its theology, you are free not to eat its sandwiches, and you are free to tell your friends not to eat them either. Persuasion is the mark of a free society. But persuasion is not what Tatchell is after. His press release, plus his other comments on the company, couples the right to boycott with demands that local authorities refuse planning permission, that landlords deny leases, and that regulators intervene to “make sure” the company never trades here. This is not a boycott. It is the mobilisation of the state to punish thought-crime.

That distinction matters. In a free country, the public may reward or punish companies in the marketplace. In our leftist police state, punishment comes via licensing boards, councils, quangos, and the permanent bureaucracy. The “civil society” groups that front such campaigns are not ragtag outsiders. They are the moral camouflage of the regime. The Peter Tatchell Foundation is not storming the citadel of power. It is within the citadel of power – an appendage of an establishment that rules by intimidation and denial of livelihood.

We are told Chick-fil-A is “sneaking in through the back door,” as though selling fried chicken were a clandestine plot against the nation. In fact, it is Peter’s friends who have mastered secrecy: blacklists kept by HR departments, “non-crime hate incidents” on police databases, dissidents deprived of banking services for political beliefs. The state outsources its censorship to NGOs and activist fronts, which then demand that landlords, councils, and corporations enforce the public ideology. It is a system in which power is everywhere and responsibility nowhere.

And here is the irony: Tatchell’s release reads like the voice of moral dissent, while in reality it is an echo of the state’s own priorities. It does not merely say “we dislike Chick-fil-A.” It insists that Chick-fil-A has no right to exist in Britain unless it renounces its faith and conforms to the new orthodoxy. It is not an invitation to debate but a campaign of harassment designed to make trade impossible for those who do not bow before the rainbow flag:

“Our campaign is calling on local councils, planning authorities, MPs, mayors and student unions to oppose new Chick-fil-A franchises, unless the company announces a permanent halt to funding for anti-LGBT+ campaigns, organisations and individuals,” added Mr Tatchell.

This is not liberalism. It is not even activism in the old sense. It is the respectable end of soft totalitarianism. The state will not jail you for disagreeing. It will simply ensure you cannot open a shop, rent an office, or operate a bank account. It is, in other words, a privatised censorship.

Chick-fil-A may or may not succeed in Britain. That is a commercial matter. What is not a commercial matter is the demand that every organisation must publicly assent to the established ideology or be hounded from the marketplace. The Peter Tatchell Foundation poses as the conscience of the nation. In truth, it is nothing more than an attack dog of an authoritarian state – a chorus master ensuring that everyone sings from the same hymn sheet, or else is denied the right to sing at all.