Fears Labour’s Misogyny Extremism Law Would Threaten Free Speech


The Government has been warned that treating misogyny as a form of extremism could threaten freedom of speech. The Telegraph has the details.

Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, has ordered a review that will look at tackling violence against women and girls in the same way as far-Right and Islamist extremism.

Ms. Cooper said growing numbers of young people were being radicalised online by misogynistic influencers and the problem had remained unaddressed for “too long”.

However, critics have argued the Government should enforce existing legislation to tackle violence against women and girls and warn that the new policy could amount to censorship.

A senior female Conservative MP said: “There should be no place for misogyny but Labour’s latest policy announcement feels very rushed and is deeply concerning on so many levels, not least, what does it mean for free speech?

“We have to tackle misogyny. It’s endemic in some workplaces and I think lots of women have faced it. But what is misogyny to one person is not necessarily to another.”

Ann Widdecombe, Reform’s Home Affairs spokesman, said Ms. Cooper’s plan was not necessary.

“If you commit violence against women and girls, that’s already a crime,” she said. “If you preach misogyny, that’s already a crime. What exactly isn’t a crime?

“They should  enforce the existing laws and stop looking to create crimes, which is what they’re doing.”

Worth reading in full.

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transmissionofflame
1 year ago

The only comfort I take is that people who want to restrict speech probably don’t feel completely confident that their case stands up to scrutiny and debate.

Free Lemming
1 year ago

Just more of the same to condition the masses that censoring speech is the most normal thing in the world. But let’s take a quick look at ‘misogyny’. It’s the most misused word in the English language – the goto descriptor for feminists everywhere (our own HECEB trots it out regularly, without shame, when anyone dares question her cult) to use a shaky ladder of moral high ground and victimhood in order to close down debate. Is there misogyny? Of course there is some. Is their misandry? Of course there is some. Which is more widespread and societally acceptable? I think any honest person knows full well that criticism and humiliation of males and masculinity is so widespread that we don’t even raise an eyebrow any longer when the latest film/series/journalist piece etc depicts men as dumb, evil animals (just white, heterosexual men of course). I work in a field which is male dominated and the only sexism I’ve ever heard has been from women who are entirely comfortable with criticism of men (not ideology) which sounds very much like hatred of men to me. I haven’t heard the same type of language from men for decades. Of course, the… Read more »

Jonathan M
Jonathan M
1 year ago
Reply to  Free Lemming

Who or what is HECEB?

Free Lemming
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonathan M

High Empress of the Cake Eating Brigade.

Jonathan M
Jonathan M
1 year ago
Reply to  Free Lemming

I’m afraid I’m still no wiser…

Free Lemming
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonathan M

You’ll have needed to have followed certain exchanges over the years. I shan’t elaborate as I don’t want to upset the delicate balance of the DS comments section, but ‘cake’ is a reference to ‘have your cake and eat it’.

varmint
1 year ago

Straight in at Number One in the Liberal Progressive Charts this week is the new single by
Far Right Said Fred.

Jane G
Jane G
1 year ago

It occurred to me that this measure might be a backhanded, unacknowledged way of rooting out extreme Islamist tendencies in radical young males, especially as they ostentatiously linked it to white men like Andrew Tate. (Do they think we can’t guess what they’re up to when they attempt these deflection tactics?)

But then I remembered that this is a Labour idea and decided it was just a stupid idea. On the other hand, the Tories were just as dim, but managed their ineptitude in a much less inflammatory way.

What if a woman says something mysoginistic, as happens when the new breed of bien pensant faux-feminists proclaim that TWAW? How will the courts decide that one?

huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  Jane G

“TWAW?”

Jane G
Jane G
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Trans women are w…..

Heretic
Heretic
1 year ago
Reply to  Jane G

Andrew Tate isn’t a “white man”, he’s an Ethnic African who converted to Islam, and said he moved to Romania because “ he liked “living in countries where corruption is accessible for everybody”[138].

On 12 March, the Romanian court ruled that the brothers can be extradited to the UK only after the Romanian trial for human trafficking concludes.[157]

It is nauseating that such a creep has deceived millions of men into hero-worshipping him as their “spokesman”.

Freddy Boy
1 year ago
Reply to  Heretic

Some might say you are on HMG,s side letting Tate get to you !

Jane G
Jane G
1 year ago
Reply to  Heretic

If he was an ethnic African the chattering classes would love him. He’s not my cup of tea but I suspect he and his detractors feed off each other. Idiots will always find another one to lionise.

varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  Jane G

Yes but we are all “Far Right Extremists” and are singled out and jailed. No one singles out Islamic Extremists. They are too scared. Total bunch of pussies.

iconoclast
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

we are all “Far Right Extremists” Speak for yourself. I am Far White and want to go to a demonstration with a banner stating “Far Whites against Far Left Racism”. Might take Palestinian and Israeli flags too on a banner saying peace for Gaza and Israel. As you will notice the Far Left don’t call for peace. They call for murder and genocide of Israelis and Jews – “from the river to the sea”. And of course none of them protest calling for housing for our homeless military veterans but only for illegal migrants. Nor for our 80,000 homeless young people. Nor for our children who want sensible rents and affordable housing to get on the housing ladder. Nor do they call for training of our out of work and economically inactive to get them back into work instead of relying on migrant labour. Nor do they call for living wages for the worst paid jobs in the UK. Why do they protest – because they are mindless idiots IMHO who are easily manipulated to serve interests external to our country to destabilise it. And that can be concluded by what they are not protesting for just as much as… Read more »

iconoclast
1 year ago
Reply to  iconoclast

I thought of “the Fair White” as a possible alternative but “Far White” seems a lot funnier and dead easy to throw back in their faces without me being chucked in gaol for a two stretch.

Mogwai
1 year ago

You want the definition of misogyny, look no further than Islam. So I will be interested to see how the likes of Cooper is able to reconcile that fact with the other undeniable fact, that the authorities, including Labour councilors, looked the other way, thereby being complicit, in the ( predominantly ) Pakistani rape gangs preying on ( predominantly ) white underage girls across England for many years. After all, is rape not the ultimate form of misogyny? Then there’s the subsequent appeasement of the Muslim community and resulting ‘two-tier Britain’ as a consequence, we’re having rubbed in our faces left, right and centre. A reminder;

”Jack Straw talking about child rape gangs.”

https://x.com/kwilliam111/status/1825421729507791004

https://x.com/Jack_H2o/status/1825370799185838133

Mogwai
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

For balance, a really shocking example of a misogynist magistrate who favoured a male perpetrator over a woman he sexually assaulted, because apparently pregnancy addles your mind, even if you have a non-pregnant witness there to testify on your behalf. How can this possibly be justified? ”I was sexually assaulted on a Thameslink train, someone grabbing and stroking my behind when I stood up to move away from him because he was very drunk and I was very pregnant. My worry hadn’t been assault, but how unsteady he was on his feet, and so close to my bump. I was a couple of weeks from my due date, travelling with my medical notes as instructed. As I moved past him and felt his warm hand creep up underneath my coat and on to my body, I understood viscerally how sexual assault has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with power, control, the need to let a woman know what her assailant could do. I shouted at him and tried to move carriages, only for his friends to follow me up the (conductor-less) train, where they stood in front of the doors, blocking my exit, and told me that “everyone”… Read more »

Ron Smith
Ron Smith
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

FFS so he witnessed the assault but did nothing.

Heretic
Heretic
1 year ago
Reply to  Ron Smith

Probably because the assailant was from the Third World?

RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Cry me a river or two. I had something likes this occuring to me for I don’t know how many times, just that it was “gangs” of gays groping me. No one gives a shit about that, even when it turns into serious;ly violent assaults causing damage to property in the few hundred of pounds area (that’s the price of another pair of glasses destroyed by someone who though this was either funny or an obvious vulnerabiliy to exploit, BTW). The by far overwhelming number perpetrators of violent crime are indeed men. But so are their victims and – as opposed to women – they can’t count on bystanders reacting anyhow sympathetic to that.

I think the point of stories like the linked-to one is mainly to spook women into being fearful of things which are – in reality – extremely unlikey to happen to support some agenda I’m not really aware of. In place of whatever it actually is, I’m inclined to substitute lebsians telling ghastly storties about ‘men’ because of competion for the same kind sex partners men more often than not – ghastily – tend to win.

varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

We are all rapists and far right nut jobs. ——But the Muslim sex offenders only have “cultural differences”. Nothing to see in Rotherham Telford and oxford mate.

soundofreason
soundofreason
1 year ago

They should enforce the existing laws and stop looking to create crimes, which is what they’re doing. This is key. We rarely need to make a new law to make something illegal. There are few new ideas in criminality. If there’s a new trend in something that is already illegal then changes to sentencing policy might be a more appropriate response – which is also not part of lawmakers role. As an example, ‘hate crime’ is already illegal if it will provoke immediate violence. Provoking a cool consideration of a violent response to an hateful comment is not the same thing at all. Such a considered violent response is in itself a crime. It brings to mind the repeated claim of terrorists: Now look what you made us do. Further: it is not up to law makers to decide who is guilty of a crime, though many MPs and media commentators seem to disagree with that. It is the courts that should assess this against the law as it is stated. Governments’ role is to write unambiguous law that it is acceptable to the people and is possible to enforce – the actual proportionate enforcement is the role of the police… Read more »

Jonathan M
Jonathan M
1 year ago

What is “extreme misogyny”, and who gets to define it? This is a very slippery slope indeed.

Ron Smith
Ron Smith
1 year ago

In a free society you should be free to hate. This is akin to ‘thoughtcrime’. Was watching some of Free Speech Nation last night and they all drew the line on ‘incitement’, a convenient too to close down free speech. Someone mentioned the Brandenburg Test where they examine every case on a basis of a realistic threat, that is far more sensible and protects free speech. I defend the right for my enemy to hate me.

transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  Ron Smith

I think it’s useful for us all to be clear exactly who hates who, so we know where we all stand and can discuss it, thrash out what the implications are, try to change minds, understand why people think they way they think.

Heretic
Heretic
1 year ago
Reply to  Ron Smith

Yes, God gave us many emotions to equip us for dealing with our short lives in human physical form, and “hate” is one of them, either as a matter of self-defence, or rooted in the emotion of “envy”.

RW
RW
1 year ago

I hope to live to experience the last digital unnative aka incorribigle 20th-centurist who believes the internet is a strange new and thus, very dangerous thing which needs to be controlled tightly to protect mankind from horrible untold dangers – This being the inevitable reaction of the mentally inflexible classes to any new technology. The printing press was regarded in the exact same way for centuries before it finally became accepted – going into retirement and/or some final resting place.

It’s just people talking to other people, for someone’s sake! They’re supposed to be allowed to do that.

minkybink
minkybink
1 year ago

Rushed legislation is poor quality legislation. There are countless knee-jerk reactions that have resulted in poorly worded nebulous law. I give you Article 5 of the Public Order Act 1986.

Heretic
Heretic
1 year ago

You can bet that Yvette is not including Muslim Gang Rapists or any Third World Ethnic, when she rails against “misogyny in the workplace”.

She will also say nothing about the millions of men who have suffered physical and psychological violence from their female partners, which some researchers have estimated as being fully 50% of all domestic violence, including female violence against children. But female violence against men is downplayed and ignored by feminists and the media, while also under-reported by men ashamed to admit they are being beaten up by their wives.

The target is the White Male, as always.

JXB
JXB
1 year ago

“There should be no place for misogyny…”

But misandry must be encouraged – all that toxic masculinity must be stamped out.

We are dealing with a bunch of bigotted, power crazed, dangerous hypocrites.

Freddy Boy
1 year ago

What a piece of work Cooper is ! A left over from Bliar ! + her hubby Ed was a complete non entity ! Nasty sky stirring cow !!!

Freddy Boy
1 year ago
Reply to  Freddy Boy

Sky ffs ! Shit it was supposed to be !

iconoclast
1 year ago

Whilst violence against women is always inexcusable the appalling cruelty meted out to large numbers of men by women and the suffering caused is immense and goes unnoticed. This can be accompanied by physical violence albeit rarely. Women have a different culture to men to the degree they are as good as a different race. One reason is it starts at school. Boys have fights but girls tend not to [although for some that has changed in recent decades]. So any pent up anger or frustration between boys is released in a fight and it is all over in moments. But for girls the anger and resentment is not released. Instead they learn how to get back at their enemies with words and manipulation of others. In short, they learn how to practice mental cruelty and some become excellent practitioners of the art. A judge on a Family Court some years ago remarked some women treating men as cash machines is another feature. There is also a somewhat callous aspect I have seen whereby once some women have one or two children they dump the man whilst collecting maintenance and support payments. Some aspects of this behaviour indicate it is… Read more »