Free Speech Must Be Absolute: Robust Debate Is the Only Way to Combat Extremism

Disclaimer: This article contains discussion of Holocaust denial, antisemitism and extremism. The views expressed are those of the writer.

In a 21st-century democracy, the importance of free speech should have long been settled. It is rather obvious that we’re more likely to find a better solution to a problem if 100 voices are included in the discussion than if the party’s line is the only approved perspective. Then, as John Stuart Mill famously said, having your opinions challenged strengthens your defence of them. Yet, attacks on free speech are sadly no news for contemporary Britain.

To use a recent example, the Deputy Leader of the Green Party, Mothin Ali has called for regulation of speech during election campaigns after his party faced completely legitimate, although certainly mean-spirited, verbal attacks during the Gorton and Denton by-election.

It is time to reinvigorate every Brit’s ardour in defending free speech, as this bulwark against tyranny is not something to be taken for granted. Indeed, Britain should go further and move as close to free speech absolutism as possible.

At first glance, this isn’t an easy position to defend. How can one look at the misinformation engulfing the contemporary media landscape and not back some kind of regulation as to what can be said?

A good case study to demonstrate this is Holocaust denial, rather common on Instagram nowadays. Try searching for Holocaust-related posts without ‘best I can do is 271k’ and ‘6 million cookies’ type comments. Not to mention the ostentatiously intellectual ‘scepticism’ regarding the ‘narrative’ voiced by, for example, Steve Laws, one of the country’s main ‘remigration’ voices.

Should Britain not respond to such vile denial of one of the most atrocious events in human history with a French-like law banning it? By no means!

Why? Because the existence of these laws is one of the main arguments used by Holocaust deniers like Nick Fuentes. “If it did happen, why is it illegal to question it?” they ask. Indeed, Fuentes’ rhetoric exemplifies how modern Holocaust denial works. He tiptoes around the issue, never explicitly saying the Holocaust is a hoax, but sending denialist dogwhistles to his audience masquerading as reasonable questioning about the body count.

This is how young men are lured into hateful conspiracies – by the image of enlightened sceptics and revisionists ‘just asking questions’ being shut down by world Jewry (which curiously manages to simultaneously run the world and fail to censor one of its biggest exposers).

So how do we address contemporary Holocaust denial? Instead of censoring those peddling it, we should rob them of their strongest argument. Maintain their freedom to deny it and instead challenge their arguments with indisputable evidence.

For example, point to the fact that one of the most commonly circulated documents allegedly disproving the 6 million figure itself says in plain German, beneath the 282,077 figure, “The [figures above] do not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the actual number of dead in the concentration camps”. That’s right, the evidence Holocaust deniers themselves use debunks their position.

As Ann Widdecombe argued in her brilliant defence of free speech at the Oxford Union:

‘… if we say: “no, we can never have the Holocaust denier because his views are so offensive that he cannot be accorded a platform”, then what happens? That sort of viewpoint is driven underground where it can quite often flourish. And people whisper behind their hands: “Oh, you know, there’s something in what he says, but we’re not allowed to hear it”. Let’s hear it! And by hearing it, we can destroy it!’

Obviously, this places a responsibility on all of us. The responsibility to read, to learn, to stay informed, to be prepared to take up arms against the sea of conspiracy theories. It is not easy, and the temptation to relegate this duty to a government body that will censor all the nasty stuff is understandable.

But that is not the right call for two reasons. For one, any well-meaning restriction of speech can be easily misused by the next government or biased judges. Speech is not like murder or theft, which you either did or did not commit. Precisely what counts as hateful or even false is subjective. And remember, no tyrannical censorship law calls the speech it outlaws ‘free speech’. For example, would you agree that spreading deliberately ‘false’ information should be punishable? Now guess which country made this law.

And secondly, remember Fuentes’ argument about anti-Holocaust denial laws in Europe. In the globalised world we live in, anything one country does influences others. So any law prescribing a harmful ideology in Czechia will benefit its followers in Italy by allowing them to claim their truth is being suppressed by the powers that be, and so on. We cannot regulate ourselves into reason.

Right now, countless people are fighting the information war. From the creators of the Holocaust Controversies website, destroying Holocaust denial myths, to fact-checkers, to countless independent journalists, people are fighting for our knowledge in a post-truth world.

Let us support their invaluable work. Dedicating even 5 minutes a day to fact-checking a news headline or tuning in to a podcast from the other side of the political spectrum to expose yourself to a different perspective is a great contribution to the fight against hateful ideas, much better than anything a Ministry of Truth can offer.