04 October 2019
"If we are not vigilant, the government’s attempts to deny the links between speech that inflames and actual acts of physical violence could be extended to deny or excuse incitement to racial hatred."
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UK: Is the prime minister’s defence of free speech ‘humbug’? (IRR News, link):
"On BBC’s Andrew Marr show, Boris Johnson defended his use of ‘martial metaphors’ in the first parliamentary debate since parliament was reconvened after the Supreme Court ruled prorogation unlawful. As Marr repeatedly criticised the prime minister’s response to Labour MP Paula Sheriff, Johnson defended his behaviour as a ‘model of restraint’. He said he was justified in telling Sheriff ‘I’ve never heard such humbug in my life’, after Sheriff, a friend of the late Jo Cox, pleaded with him to stop using ‘inflammatory language’ because, argued Johnson, ‘if you cannot use a metaphor like surrender to describe the surrender bill … you are impoverishing the language and diminishing parliamentary debate’."
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