Government dropped free speech law after universities feared for China interests

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/24/british-universities-lobbied-drop-free-speech/

Posted by SojournerInThisVale

8 Comments

  1. No_Quality_6874 on

    If your business model revolves around Chinese money, perhaps it needs to change.

  2. “We are talking particularly those at the top end of the Russell Group. Some universities are in a severe financial crisis but the top-end ones still make a surplus and that surplus is pretty much entirely down to the Chinese money.”

    A very concerning and depressing situation. We should be doing everything we can to reduce dependence on China.

  3. thehollowman84 on

    >The Department for Education (DfE) said the Bill would have a “negative” impact on vulnerable groups and that it opened universities up to costly legal challenges from academics if they fell foul of the new law.

    The actual reason it was dropped – it wasn’t really about free speech.

  4. Happytallperson on

    Very misleading headline. This law was always going to an incredible ball-ache for universities to implement, do it’s legitimate for universities to raise that issue. Which they’ve been doing publicly as well as privately. The complaints cited are not actually about the ‘free speech’ elements, but the administrative elements.

    Separate to that, it was always a horrifically misconceived law. The problem Universities have is that when ‘Students for Racist Muppets’ book a room on campus for Racist McGee to give a speech in campus, Racist McGee can then publicise ‘Speaking at University of Manchestet last night I said…..’.

    People seeing this naturally assume that this means this talk was if the grade and seriousness that serious students will have learned from, and it has a certain gravitas. 

    Whereas a University, as a brand, has a very strong interest in not lending that brand to give credibility to sad little street brawling fascists. 

    This law was never about Free Speech in the classical sense of letting people express ideas freely. It was about guaranteeing that people like Toby Young, without a single meaningful thought in their brain but ample amounts of cash and free time to bring litigation, always have a platform.

  5. terrordactyl1971 on

    The UK so desperately needs a law protecting thought, speech, expression and protest. They have been so badly eroded by the offended left for the last 20 years.

  6. “force to actively promote free speech”

    If you force them to do something, you limit their free speech.

  7. Chinese student numbers in the UK are stagnant at best. They’re slowly being replaced as the primary foreign student demographic by India. This is a long-term trend set to continue.

    I find it difficult to believe that we’re pandering to the Chinese market in any meaningful manner, beyond simple corporate whoring that will exist regardless of which demographic it targets.