Jon Holbrook’s essay on The Rise and Fall of the Rule of Law is published in From Self To Selfie, available from Amazon here.
Reversing Britain’s Free Speech Recession
In his foreward to this publication Lord Frost claims that “Reversing Britain’s free speech recession is the subject of this excellent and timely Prosperity Institute paper by the barrister Jon Holbrook.” Click here for my five key policy proposals: Repeal hate speech laws. Repeal s5 of the Public Order Act 1986 and laws that criminalise speech that falls short of being likely to cause violence. Replace several communications offences with one that outlaws messages that are menacing and targeted. Protect speech in the workplace and beyond with a tort that outlaws the unlawful of free speech.…
Cancel culture nearly ended my legal career, but I fought back
Until January 2021 I had had a successful 30-year career at the bar in a highly regarded chambers practising in public law. Yet almost overnight it ended. I was expelled by my chambers and then faced a year-long battle to clear my name after my professional regulator slapped me with a £500 fine for a tweet criticising some Muslims for hostility to free speech.
Since then, I have been unable to practice from a chambers, to practice in public law, or to earn a living. In short, I have been a victim of cancel culture, and…
Bar none – the fraud behind the BSB’s “equality and diversity” drive
The one characteristic that the Bar actually does lack is a diversity of political opinion. And this really does matter since without it the Bar will lose public respect, a problem already apparent with the vernacular of “lefty lawyers”. Yet by seeking to require barristers to promote “equality, diversity and inclusion” the Bar Standards Board will ensure that the Bar becomes even more politically monotone.
Bar’s regulator requires barristers to be woke?
The Bar Standards Board (BSB) is taking sides in a politically controversial issue by proposing to require barristers to advance EDI. In fact, the Bar is already a place where ethnic minorities and women can thrive. So why the push for more ‘diversity’? Because EDI is the beast that needs constant feeding – even when it does untold harm to a profession and the public.
Free speech for professionals?
In a boost for free speech the barristers’ regulator has redrafted its social media guidance to recognise that free speech must prevail over the urge of the easily offended to cancel.
Maya Forstater triumphs over cancel culture
Maya Forstater’s workplace victory shows how the law can defend free speech against the wokesters who practise cancel culture.
Speaking freely just got a bit easier
In August my professional regulator, the Bar Standards Board, sanctioned me for a tweet. An appeal panel has now overturned the BSB’s decision and confirmed the importance of political speech under human rights law. The panel concluded that a tweet that may cause offence, or which could promote hostility towards others as a group, provides no basis for interfering with the right of a barrister, or any other member of a regulated profession, to speak politically.
Cancelled, cleared, then fined
For expressing my political opinions, in circumstances entirely unrelated to my professional work, I was expelled from my chambers; and though now exonerated, I have been fined £500 by the bar’s regulator on a newly minted charge. I reflect on the latest decision of the Bar Standards Board, which has at least exonerated me for the tweet that brought about my expulsion from Chambers.
Professional denouncement for private opinions
Jon Holbrook is being formally investigated by his professional regulator, the Bar Standards Board, on a charge of bringing the profession into disrepute. His alleged crime? Eighteen tweets in which he has expressed views ‘not infrequently seen in the Mail or the Telegraph’. Law professor Andrew Tettenborn criticises the Board’s actions which will have a chilling effect on free speech and which show how ‘tolerance has now become vice and intolerance a sign of virtue’.
Shamima Begum may return to Britain
Human rights laws may come to Begum’s aid in her appeal against loss of British citizenship. The Surpeme Court in February did not rule on the issue of her deprivation of citizenship. When the courts rule on this issue ‘me’ may well trump ‘us’.
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Follow My Blog
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
