Kate Maltby Kate Maltby

Will the free speech lobby accept Jeremy Corbyn’s right to be a republican?

On Wednesday night, Jeremy Corbyn brought to an end one of the most undignified sagas in recent politics, cobbling together a shuffled compromise on his induction into the Privy Council. The Privy Council, as we’ve been told so often now, is the body of senior politicians that is allowed to receive security briefings. Membership would have required Corbyn – the life-long republican –  to vow ‘not to know or understand of any manner of thing to be attempted, done, or spoken against Her Majesty’s person, honour, crown, or dignity royal’. Did he kneel, bob, or grab the royal paw in an firm egalitarian handshake? Does it matter? Meanwhile, America’s college campuses remain the epicentre of a febrile national debate: what price free speech, when it threatens to uproot the very foundations of a society? And who on God’s green earth is entitled to police it?

Over in the States, much clucking – much of it well founded – about students who can’t handle challenging ideas. And here in Britain, we’re in on the act, too. A Daily Mail double spread features the student now largely known as ‘shrieking girl’, who has since been publicly identified and personally targeted. Ed West joins the chorus in arguing that she comes from a very privileged background (and therefore can’t possibly have ever felt racial exclusion at Yale?). ‘Political correctness is not “all about politeness”‘ writes Ed. ‘It’s about power, and always has been.’

I agree with Ed that when students gets used to shouting down speech, the result is cheap power plays and shoddy comprehension. But one would think, from reading some coverage, that here in Britain we’re open to the broadest of ideas, the greatest of challenges to our own assumptions. Or that we should be.

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Kate Maltby
Written by
Kate Maltby
Kate Maltby writes about the intersection of culture, politics and history. She is a theatre critic for The Times and is conducting academic research on the intellectual life of Elizabeth I.

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