Offended by opinions

Barrister Sarah Phillimore in the Telegraph:

Baroness Harman’s independent review of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment at the Bar, published earlier this month, sent ripples across the barrister community for its potential to lead to censorship and the repression of free speech.

Sadly, these likely encroachments do not surprise me.

Speech should only be a criminal or regulatory matter if a very high bar of offence is crossed. Certainly I don’t think I’ve ever crossed it. Yet, in our culture now, mere disagreement is seen as violence, and not having a prevailing view about issues such as sexuality or transgenderism is seen inherently to be bigoted.

I know this from personal experience. In 2020 I was investigated for 18 months by the Bar Standards Board (BSB) after an unknown person reported a collection of my past social media tweets that they deemed to be offensive, to the police.

Twelve pages were recorded by Wiltshire Police as transphobic and religiously aggravated “non-crime hate incidents”.

While ultimately the police and the BSB’s investigation came to nothing, it was distressing, irritating, time-consuming and utterly absurd.

See here for more details. She's also a particular target of Jolyon Maugham's risible Good Law Project, accused of misgendering and deadnaming a trans woman (here). The horror.

The thing that really worries me from Lady Harman’s new report is recommendation number 24, which reads: “Regulatory enforcement action must be taken against online bullying and harassment,” particularly if it’s motivated by misogyny or racism.

But who is deciding an unknown individual’s motivations for a tweet? Somebody who is upset enough to get the whole apparatus of either the criminal law or a regulatory offence moving? It’s very dangerous.

I’m confident I understand the law around freedom of expression inside out. I understand the requirements for a registered professional and about proportionality, but that, I think, is what we are losing. The fetters some people wish to put on speech, simply because said speech makes them feel unhappy, is grossly disproportionate….

Last year’s proposal to make it a duty for barristers to promote equality, diversity and inclusion was a clear example of what I’m afraid of. Ultimately, it did not succeed, and I am glad of that, because these proposals don’t really mean diversity. They mean one political view. Transgress against that view and you will be punished.

For the last decade, the message across public sector organisations is that there is only one thing we’re allowed to believe – and that we must always promote love and inclusion. While that may be a noble aim, it has had disastrous effects on the cohesion of society and alienates vast groups of people. For example, you’re not allowed to discuss immigration because then you’re a racist, and you’re not allowed to discuss gender identity because then you’re a transphobe.

There’s only a handful of us at the Bar who’ve been willing to speak out. I know many colleagues who keep their heads down because they’ve got young children and big mortgages….

Frankly, I have no compassion for people who are offended by opinions. If they’re upset by what I say, unless it is genuinely insulting, I do not care. I think they are contemptible.

And as for the Bar Standards Board, I don’t think my opinions or those of any other barrister should be any concern of theirs.