If criticising mass immigration can get you banned from Britain, free speech is dead

Yahoo

18-04-2025

When Sir Keir Starmer visited the White House in February, he stoutly rejected JD Vance's claim that free speech is increasingly restricted in Britain. 'We've had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom,' retorted our Prime Minister, 'and it will last for a very, very long time.'
This was of course reassuring to hear. Unfortunately, however, the Home Office appears to have missed the memo. Because it has just barred a French author from entering the UK to give a speech about the dangers of mass immigration.
Renaud Camus, 78, argued in his 2011 book Le Grand Remplacement ('The great replacement') that unchecked immigration in Western European countries is part of a deliberate plot by the powers-that-be, which will ultimately lead to these countries' indigenous inhabitants being 'replaced' by people of other cultures. Does the Home Office deem this to be an unacceptable line of thought? I can only infer that it does. Because in an email seen by the Telegraph, officials informed Mr Camus that his 'presence in the UK' was 'not considered to be conducive to the public good'.
This is an intriguing claim. Not least because I'm reasonably confident that there are at least some members of the British public who subscribe to Mr Camus's theory. Does this mean that the presence of these British people is not conducive to the public good, either? If so, what do our authorities propose to do with them? Should those British people be banned from Britain, too?
At any rate, I fear that the Home Office's decision to bar Mr Camus is liable to backfire. Such a draconian intervention will only reinforce his supporters' belief that he's right, and that those who rule us are conspiring to silence him. Indeed, news of the ban may well lead lots of people who had never previously heard of Mr Camus to take an interest in his theories, too. Better, surely, just to let the man speak, no matter how horribly problematic his opinions may seem. After all, how many people in this country would even have known about his proposed talk, if the Home Office hadn't prevented him from making it?
Still, perhaps some British voters will look on the bright side. How exciting, they will think, that the UK authorities have finally found a foreigner who they believe should not be granted automatic entry into our country. Nigel Farage could even call for a new bank holiday, so that, each year, the public can commemorate this historic occasion.
As for Mr Camus, I don't know whether he still wishes to visit. But if so, has he considered eschewing the Eurostar in favour of a dinghy? Then the authorities would welcomed him with open arms. And if, before setting sail from Calais, he remembers to bin his passport, he'll be able to stay for as long as he likes.
Could the American public turn against capital punishment? A leading US academic believes so. Writing for the Guardian, Austin Sarat – a professor of political science at Amherst College in Massachusetts – notes that some US states have recently gone back to using firing squads to execute condemned criminals. This, he argues, represents 'a defeat for death penalty supporters' – because the firing squads will act as 'a vivid reminder of the brutality of state killing', and thus 'undermine the pro-capital-punishment narrative'.
Is he sure? Personally, I find it hard to imagine many ordinary Americans saying, 'I used to be in favour of executing this mass-murdering paedophile. But only in a soft, wholesome, lovely way, such as gently smothering him in his sleep with a bundle of kittens. Now I've discovered that executing people isn't necessarily very nice, I'm firmly against it. I'd hate to think that this mass-murdering paedophile might suffer.'
In any case, American firing squads can be surprisingly thoughtful. In 1996, John Taylor – a child-killer from Utah – was due to be executed by this method. On the appointed date, he requested, for his last meal, a pizza 'with everything on it': sausage, pepperoni, ham, mushrooms, hot peppers and extra cheese.
Having wolfed down his pizza, however, the child-killer complained that he had an upset stomach. What happened next was so blackly comic, it could have come from the pages of Joseph Heller. Because the guards went and fetched him some antacid.
This was wonderfully kind of them. After all, they could have said: 'Um, sir, we're about to shoot you dead. Literally minutes from now. So don't worry if your tummy's a bit queasy. It won't be hurting much longer.'
Birmingham bin strike activists, we learnt yesterday, are planning to cause a political earthquake. Feeling let down by Labour, they want to form a 'real workers' party' – which would comprise Left-wing trade unionists, environmentalists… and 'Free Palestine activists'.
I wouldn't have expected to see this final group included in a 'real workers' party' – if only because none of them seem to have jobs. During normal working hours, 'Free Palestine activists' tend to be far too busy vandalising buildings and blocking traffic. Thus preventing 'real workers' from getting to work.
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