> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://goodoil.news/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Speech in Britain: An Endangered Liberty - URL: https://goodoil.news/speech-in-britain-an-endangered-liberty/ - Published: 2026-11-03T00:30:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-03T00:30:00.000Z - Description: Employees are not merely forbidden from saying certain things. They are increasingly compelled to say the right things – through mandatory training sessions, values frameworks, DEI protocols and disciplinary codes framed in the elastic language of dignity, inclusion and professionalism. - Author: Reproduced with permission - Tags: UK Politics, Free Speech, Censorship [**Michael Reiners**](https://dailysceptic.org/2026/11/01/speech-in-britain-an-endangered-liberty/?ref=goodoil.news) *Michael Reiners is a lawyer and legislative draftsman with expert knowledge of freedom-of-speech law, and a co-author of the Adam Smith Institute’s* [*Freedom of Speech Bill* ](https://www.adamsmith.org/research/the-freedom-of-speech-bill-2026?ref=goodoil.news)*(2026).* Britain possesses a remarkable variety of mechanisms by which it can destroy you for speaking. Many citizens do not realise this, because they have learned – gradually, imperceptibly – to say and think almost nothing at all. All of the issues flowing from this censorship apparatus are addressed by the [Freedom of Speech Bill (2026)](https://www.adamsmith.org/research/the-freedom-of-speech-bill-2026?ref=goodoil.news). My co-authors are Preston Byrne and Elijah Granet. The Model Bill is a template – a menu of options – for any UK politician or citizen who wishes to halt the collapse of Orwell’s country into Orwell’s fiction. It is not a radical proposal. The Freedom of Speech Bill is perfectly aligned with Britain’s liberal history and its traditional values – values that are sane and just, and which the UK’s current speech laws conspicuously fail to reflect. **Criminal speech law** For the working classes – the playthings and the meat in the meat-grinder of our legal system – the restrictions faced are usually criminal. You will not hear about these people in the press as speech martyrs, because they cannot afford to fight these cases and journalists rarely cover them. The state’s preferred instruments are the Communications Act 2003, s.127 – for “grossly offensive” messaging – alongside the Malicious Communications Act 1988. There is also the Public Order Act 1986, ss.4A and 5 – the “alarm and distress” offences. **Civil speech law and professional regulation** The power of professional regulation over the individual is chronically under-discussed. The Nursing and Midwifery Order 2001, Health Professions Order 2001, Legal Services Act 2007 and Medical Act 1983 all empower regulators to control the speech of their registrants, denying them the ability to work on the basis of their expression. These regulators have routinely expanded their remit to penalise private speech made wholly outside professional duties. In ordinary employment law, you can be dismissed for speech made outside the workplace. You are left to rely on ECHR Article 10 and the Equality Act 2010’s philosophical belief protections to prevent this. Such defences are routinely overpowered – and usually bypassed entirely by internal HR processes long before any external challenge becomes viable. Challenging such a decision is rarely an option for the Englishman, unless he is already a public figure able to engage in crowdfunding. The Freedom of Speech Bill (2026) disempowers regulators from intervening in the private speech of professionals, and gives workers a route to challenge employers who penalise lawful expression (ss.13, 15, 16 and 21). Schedule 3 amends the Employment Rights Act 1996 to protect lawful speech made outside the workplace. Schedule 4 amends the Equality Act 2010, adding “lawful speech” as a protected characteristic – inverting the existing HR-to-homelessness pipeline. **Business and the Internet** The censorship apparatus now runs through private enterprise. Ofcom already treats broadcasters as responsible intermediaries under its Broadcasting Code, barring “hate speech” and drawing explicit attention to the speech-suppression provisions of the Public Order Act 1986. The Online Safety Act 2023 extends the same logic to internet companies on a far greater scale. Passed in October 2023 and fattened by Ofcom’s endless codes of practice, it rapidly revealed itself as the most far-reaching censorship mechanism yet devised in any Western democracy. Ofcom may require firms to answer information notices, submit to interviews and comply with inspection demands. Named senior managers may personally commit a criminal offence if they fail to take all reasonable steps to prevent certain information offences by their company; in the more serious cases, this can carry up to two years’ imprisonment. Many businesses, confronted with that machinery, will not wait for a court to determine what is unlawful. They will comply pre-emptively – implementing digital identity checks and designing their moderation systems to delete first and ask no questions later. Platforms will not simply remove content proven harmful. They will remove anything that might become a liability. Those without the compliance infrastructure will simply close their doors to British users. Byrne’s proposed solution is drawn directly from the American experience. Section 20 of the Model Bill offers a provision modelled on Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act: no provider or user of an interactive computer service is to be treated as the publisher of third-party content. Crucially, the immunity is civil only. And the bill imposes one clear, enforceable obligation on platforms: detect and report child sexual abuse material to law enforcement within 24 hours of acquiring actual knowledge of it. The Freedom of Speech Bill (2026) repeals the Online Safety Act 2023 (Schedule 1), and replaces the OSA’s regime with a Section 230-style civil immunity for internet platforms (s.20). **Institutional use of speech penalties for ideological restructuring** For institutions, speech controls have become the mechanism by which they have ideologically pruned themselves – removing independent-minded individuals through employment law, and replacing them with protocol-oriented conformists. In the NHS, in universities, in local government, in regulators and across the wider public sector, employees are not merely forbidden from saying certain things. They are increasingly compelled to say the right things – through mandatory training sessions, values frameworks, DEI protocols and disciplinary codes framed in the elastic language of dignity, inclusion and professionalism. The effect has been to drive out sensible, independent-minded people from every institution of consequence. The Freedom of Speech Bill (2026), s.13, bars the state from penalising lawful expression or maintaining codes and policies that suppress it. Section 14 bans non-crime speech monitoring and requires the destruction of existing records held in violation of that rule. Section 16 bars compelled ideological speech in employment, education, licensing, accreditation, funding and public benefits. Schedule 3 protects lawful expression made outside the workplace. Schedule 4 bars compelled endorsement of messages or viewpoints under the Equality Act 2010. **Conclusion** The obvious remedy is repeal. The Freedom of Speech Bill (2026), published by the Adam Smith Institute, offers exactly that – alongside clarity and narrow definitions of what speech may lawfully be prohibited. Until political parties choose to push for and adopt this bill, our nation will remain a cautionary tale in the realm of free speech. This article was originally published by [the Daily Sceptic](https://dailysceptic.org/2026/11/01/speech-in-britain-an-endangered-liberty/?ref=goodoil.news).