Should free trade be conditional on free speech? That is the query posed by Lois McLatchie Miller, a senior legal communications officer at Christian advocacy group ADF International.
Writing for the Daily Wire, McLatchie Miller lamented the decline of free speech in Britain and in her own native Scotland, where US President Donald Trump recently spent a working holiday. There, in between rounds of golf, he managed to agree a trade take care of the EU and met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
McLatchie Miller noted that at present around 30 people in Britain are arrested each day for online posts, a figure that’s believed to be well above the typical for a developed Western nation and should even be higher than supposedly more authoritarian countries like Russia.
She particularly took aim at Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act, passed in April last yr. Under the law, speech “stirring up hatred” is now an offence that might potentially land someone in prison for as much as seven years. It is feasible to fall foul of the law even when no offence against anyone was intended.
Of equal concern is the introduction of “buffer zones” around abortion clinics. While these have sprung up everywhere in the country, it’s again in Scotland that probably the most draconian type of censorship has emerged.
One 62-year-old woman, Livia Tossici-Bolt was arrested for standing in an abortion clinic buffer zone with an indication that said “Here to speak, if you happen to want”. The Member of the Scottish Parliament behind the law, Gillian Mackay, has said that even praying by the window inside one’s own residence may very well be illegal inside a buffer zone, “depending on who’s passing the window”.
McLatchie suggested that this concerning decline in free speech called into query Britain’s suitability as an ally and trading partner of the US.
“The UK cannot credibly advocate for open markets while tolerating closed discourse,” she said.
“A nation cannot speak loudly on the world stage while silencing its residents at home.
“If Britain wishes to stay a trusted partner within the transatlantic alliance — not only economically but morally — it must reaffirm its commitment to the freedoms that outline liberal democracy.”
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