Baroness Claire Fox has launched a scathing attack against Labour, accusing the party of being "careless" with free speech in its Employment Rights Bill.The crossbench peer told GB News the legislation would "sanitise where we have our most important conversations" and damage people's capacity to speak freely.READ THE FULL STORY HERE
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00:00to block this so-called banter ban in Labour's workers' rights overhaul
00:04when new laws return to Parliament later this month.
00:08And under this law, pubs could ban customers speaking about contentious beliefs,
00:13whatever they are, such as transgender and religious topics.
00:17And worst of all, football fans on the terraces could be stopped
00:21from shouting things such as, are you blind?
00:24And other choice words at referees.
00:26Now, under Angela Rayner's workers' rights reforms,
00:30this could mean football fans are shown the red card.
00:34Let's speak now with Baroness Claire Fox,
00:37who is no doubt involved in this pushback against free speech clampdowns.
00:42Baroness Fox, this happens all the time.
00:45It seems astonishing that people might get persecuted on the football terraces.
00:49I find it so galling that they're using the excuse of workers' rights to introduce this.
00:55That really annoys me.
00:57There are some good bits of this bill.
00:58There's lots of it that are terrible, by the way.
01:00But to focus on this, what they're doing is they're not downright banning it.
01:04They'd say, no, no, you're over-exaggerating, Martin.
01:07What are you talking about?
01:09But what they're doing is they're saying that everyone who works in a public-facing organisation
01:14should be protected from third parties who might harass them verbally,
01:20i.e. they might overhear things, which the harassment in this instance
01:24is just simply offensive ideas that you don't like.
01:29And therefore, the employers, the bosses of the pub or the football ground,
01:34could be sued by that worker if they complain that they've heard something.
01:39Now, I don't know about you, and you're in the heart of Westminster there,
01:43but there's great celebration going on at the moment
01:45because of the fantastic win by Four Women's Scotland.
01:49So you can imagine all these women are piling off to the pub
01:53and the clubs to celebrate tonight that they have won a victory
01:57for the state of the bleeding obvious, which is that sex is biological,
02:02women are women, trans women are not women, etc.
02:05Now, if they went into a pub after this bill would be passed
02:09with that amendment in it, the pub owners would be sort of going around going,
02:15shh, everyone, don't say that because we've got a sort of trans-inclusive member
02:19of staff who might take offence.
02:22And so it's going to sanitise where we have our most important conversation,
02:27some people might say, which is the informal public realm,
02:31when we chat with our mates, when we row, when we say all sorts of things,
02:36but people can overhear.
02:38And as you say, the football grounds, and by the way, the university sector,
02:42where we've already had plenty of cancel culture going on,
02:45this is just another example where the government aren't attacking free speech,
02:51but they're careless about free speech.
02:53They don't recognise that this is going to damage our capacity to speak freely.
02:58It's an absolute disgrace, and I'm really worried about it,
03:02but we're going to do our best to fight back.
03:05And Clare Fox, right now, the Americans, J.D. Vance,
03:08they're all zoning in on Britain's death of free speech,
03:12free speech being a part of a free trade agreement.
03:15It seems incredible that football fans could be criminalised,
03:19but let's face it, some fruity things get said on the terraces.
03:22Have you ever been down the Millwall?
03:24Crikey, everyone there would end up getting shown the red card.
03:27Would there be nobody allowed back in?
03:29I'm afraid the sad news is that they already are being,
03:32so it's just another thing to add to it.
03:34I mean, if you actually look at the football behaviour orders,
03:37and all sorts of chants are now banned,
03:40and people have been banned from their football grounds
03:42for basically being football fans and being a bit lively.
03:47And I think that the thing that I really can't stand is it's layer upon layer
03:53of this attempt at sanitising the public square.
03:57And they basically think that if we're left on our own to chat,
04:01to talk, that effectively we're going to say things which might be offensive
04:07to a particular viewpoint, a particular worldview.
04:10And the irony of them using the workers' rights bill on this is,
04:14who do they think go for a pint and have a moan and a whinge?
04:19It's workers.
04:20So you go for a pub, if you work, I don't know,
04:23you work as a fire officer, fire service,
04:25you go from the NHS and you're moaning about what's happened during the day.
04:29I mean, that's who goes to these places,
04:31letting off steam on the football terraces,
04:34on the bin men or whoever, right?
04:36And they don't want to feel that on their days off,
04:39in their leisure time, they're being spied on.
04:43And the problem is the onus is on the owners of these establishments
04:48to be risk-averse, isn't it?
04:50Because they're going to wander around listening in to conversations.
04:55And if somebody's having a, you know,
04:57they've just watched you, Martin, on GB News,
05:00and they start talking about small boats crisis,
05:02and they've got a few things to say on immigration,
05:05but somebody in the bar staff might be offended by it,
05:08they're going to come and say, shh, keep the lid on that.
05:11We don't want that kind of conversation around here.
05:13This is legal conversation.
05:16Nobody is harassing any member of staff.
05:18If you actually physically harassed or directly attacked a member of staff
05:23because of, you know, if you call them racist names or anything,
05:27you should be banterized.
05:28I agree with that.
05:29That's different.
05:29But this is not what they're trying to do.
05:32And I think that hopefully there's enough of us in the Lords
05:35to mount an assault on this,
05:38to embarrass the Labour Party that says, after all,
05:41it wants to win over the odd Red Wall vote.
05:44They're going to lose them unless they do something about this.
05:47Baroness Claire Fox, we have to leave it there.
05:49And ironically, in a debate about free speech,
05:52I must apologize for a fruity word there that Baroness Claire Fox used.
05:57Isn't this an irony, Claire Fox?
05:59I'm even censoring you.
06:00Just slap on the wrist.
06:00Just slap on the wrist.
06:01And again.