Mainstreaming the campaign for free speech

JVL Introduction

Here is Jonathan Coulter’s speech at the launch rally for the Campaign for Free Speech. The event took place on 12th December and was co-organised by Labour Left Alliance and Labour against the Witch-hunt.

Jonathan spoke as a Liberal Democrat disenchanted with sectarianism and tribalism across the political spectrum, including his own party, and which stops people engaging with each other and seeking common ground.

He describes the ‘fake antisemitism campaign’ against the Labour left as the worst single episode of misinformation he has ever witnessed and finds depressing parallels in the way both Lib Dem and Labour establishments have handled it.

At the same time, he urges all those concerned about this situation to reach out to a range of potential supporters and frame their arguments within a broader struggle for free speech and against misinformation emanating from the media.

Jonathan Coulter says:

I have been active on Palestine and the Middle East for eleven years, but this has developed into a broader concern for free speech and media reform in the UK.

In October 2016, two Murdoch newspapers grossly misreported a House of Lords meeting chaired by Jenny Tonge, causing me to lead an audience complaint to the regulator, the ‘Independent Press Standards Organisation’ (IPSO). When this didn’t produce the desired results, I launched a judicial review of IPSO with the support of the Hacked Off Campaign. You can read about this and other matters on my blog www.freeexpressionforall.org (and sign up for updates at the bottom of the home page).

I have been a member of the Liberal Democrats for just five and half years, but am generally disappointed with party politics, finding it riven with sectarianism and tribalism which prevents people talking to each other properly. This is not only on the left or the far left, but I find it among the Lib Dems. I have challenged Lib Dems about the misinformation and smearing of the Labour party over antisemitism, but while many recognise what is happening, they are often unwilling to lift a finger because these are Labour people.

Getting disconcerted about party politics, I have got more active on single issues, concerning the Middle East, freedom of expression and active travel.

However, I am very happy to talk at today’s event. While I do not call myself a socialist, I identify with the idea of ‘for the many, not the few’. In fact, I know few people who want the opposite.

I like your group’s unapologetic approach in dealing with antisemitism smears, and contrast this to supporters of Palestinian rights who often appease the pro-Israel lobby in one way or another – sugaring the pill, hiding the truth, always talking about sensitivities, hoping to gain acceptance with the media, political parties or whatever. I’d have to put Jeremy Corbyn at the head of the list and have seen instances with PSC. I therefore wholeheartedly agree with Kerry-Anne’s recent article ‘How to fight the witch-hunt and win’, when she says “Every capitulation emboldens them. And that’s why it has to stop”.

However, I was less happy when Kerry-Anne presented the smear campaign simply as an attack on “the working class, and anti-racist socialists”. Kerry, your potential allies may take issue with this, because they see this smear campaign as an attack on all of us (you may remember the names of Jenny Tonge and David Ward), and something that is corrupting the people and institutions of this country. If we want to win friends and influence people in larger numbers, we need more inclusive language, focusing on what we have in common and not get hung up on differences – which often turn out to be more semantic than real.

The fake antisemitism campaign against Labour is the worst single episode of misinformation I have ever witnessed. Since 2015, the mainstream media has put out a uniform wall-to-wall narrative and failed to report evidence that disputes it. It is a surreal situation, where BBC produces a documentary about Chinese treatment of Uighurs, called ‘How to Brainwash a Million People’ (broadcast 25/11/19), while itself contributing to the brainwashing of tens of millions of British people, by more subtle means, in the run-up to the 2019 General Election.

But this is not just a problem for Labour. You may have seen articles I have published with other Lib Dems complaining that the party leaders supported the fake campaign and were unwilling to discuss the evidence behind it, about how the party establishment has systematically censored internal discussion of this, and its double-standards and hypocrisy in the handling of disciplinary complaints. Those disciplined on grounds of antisemtism are sometimes subjected to humiliating treatment, not allowed to know who is accusing them, nor the substance of their comments, which sounds like what is going on in Labour. By contrast, the party allows supporters of the party line to misbehave on a grand scale, and with impunity. This is something the party would rather not discuss but it is documented on my blog.

Looking forward, I think we need to think in terms of Russian dolls, including a smaller inner doll and a larger outer doll. The smaller doll is the misinformation about antisemitism, while the larger doll is the wider framework of misinformation in the UK resulting from the ownership and operation of the mainstream media, and the dark (anonymous) money that finances misinformation. Nick Davies magnificently described the malfunctioning of the media in his book ‘Flat-Earth News’ (2009), while Peter Geoghegan’s ‘Democracy for Sale’ (2020) showed how right-wing political campaigns and ‘think-tanks’, assisted by dark money, were pushing out misinformation, in the UK and elsewhere.

The small doll is particularly bad because ‘all the stars are aligned’: the Israel lobby and supporters, the Conservative party, the media and right-wing Labour rivals are all in the line. But the larger doll may prove much more damaging in the long term. Let’s think of matters of peace and war.

The Lib Dems are justly proud that under Charles Kennedy they opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while Labour and Conservatives went along with it. But it is often forgotten that this was a last minute and close-run decision, accompanied by considerable handwringing from a timid party establishment, fearing tabloid press disapproval and accusations of ‘unpatriotic behaviour’.

This raises serious questions. What would have happened if the Lib Dems had opposed the war much earlier? Could they have influenced MPs from other parties to vote against it? And what will happen next time with the growing authoritarianism we are witnessing within our political parties. How will they behave if, for example, government tries to drag us into a confrontation with Iran?

We should present the egregious campaign against Labour as part of a larger problem of misinformation in the UK and reach out to potential allies who are looking at the ‘larger doll’. Think of the Hacked Off Campaign, the Media Reform Coalition, Truth Defence and all those (like Edward Miliband and Kenneth Clarke) who fought for the full implementation of Justice Leveson’s recommendations. Leveson sought to rein in the press’s ability to lie and make it easier for people to complain, making use of low-cost arbitration instead of having to bear massive legal fees.

Think of people like Mary Fitzgerald, Peter Geoghegan and Carol Cadwalladr who are fighting to expose the use of dark money and the manipulation of social media, sympathetic journalists like Peter Oborne, and potentially sympathetic elements in other parties – even some members of the Conservative Middle East Council (CMEC) who have not spoken up much lately but have in the past. In short, we need to reinvent the campaign as an inclusive one welcoming British people of different political perspectives, but united in the vision of ‘for the many, not the few’.

Of course, some of these people may turn out to be ‘progressive-except-on-Palestine’ (PEP), but we are going to have to fight that challenge and look for different ways of engaging with them.

So, to summarise, we need to:

• think in terms of Russian dolls
• move out of our sectarian echo-chambers
• focus on shared interests
• and avoid getting hung up on our differences, that are often more semantic than real