Brandon Lewis, Conservative chairman, writes: sign our free speech petition

Conservatives



Last night, Momentum-supporting thugs broke into a university event and tried to silence Conservatives. Wearing balaclavas, they tried through violence and intimidation to stop the ideas that they disagreed with from being heard.



Momentum, the left-wing campaign group, was set up after Mr Corbyn's initial victory as Labour leader to keep the spirit and politics of his campaign alive.


Young people have a right to hear all sides of the political debate. So we’ll protect free speech by stepping up our speaker programme – making sure Conservative voices are heard in universities across the country.


Together, we can send a message to Labour and Momentum.



Those who try to shut down speakers are afraid of letting students make up their own minds.




With best wishes,


The Rt. Hon. Brandon Lewis MP
Chairman of the Conservative Party

 
Promoted by Alan Mabbutt on behalf of the Conservative Party, both at 4 Matthew Parker Street, London, SW1H 9HQ

Comments

Jim said…
why does it help, come on think about this for a moment.

Ok, so you have an argument against my position, i decide that other people should not hear that argument, so I no platform you

what is the first thing the audience will do, do you think. Personally i think its go home and look into your argument, and the facts you would have made, but of course they will look more deeply into your argument than you ever could have given in a 10 minute presentation.

Title a video on you tube, the facts *INSERT NAME HERE* does not want you to know. and low and behold you will generate much more traffic, most of which will stay to the end.

Its how people work, label a button "do not press" put it in a waiting room and watch a camera feed, how many to you think will press it?
8:19 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Lots of them would.

You are exactly right.

The idiots who put on balaclava helmets, turned up at the back of Jacob Rees-Mogg's meeting and started shouting have given him acres and acres of press coverage and millions of mentions on social media this weekend, most of it favourable to him.

The Sun even suggested that he came out of it looking like Ghandi.

Attempt to ban or disrupt speakers are not good for democracy - though they can be wonderful for whoever is being protested against!
9:00 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more