Toby Young launches 50-a-year ‘Free Speech Union’ – The National

Do you frequentlyneed someone to defend you because you've made "politically incorrect" (racist, sexist or homophobic) jokes online and your children are threatening to emancipate themselves?

Are you afraid of what "cancel culture" means for you - a person who is unlikely to ever be "cancelled" due to not actually being a public figure?

Well we've got just the thing for you.

Journalist and professional contrarian Toby Young has announced he is now the general secretary of something he calls the Free Speech Union and he's charging near 50 a year for the privilege of joining it.

Unfortunately we cannot tell you how the union describes itself, because our work computers think its official website is a security risk.

But the general idea is that the Free Speech Union will defend you from no-platforming, cancellation - all that fancy modern stuff.

Announcing the scheme with a Twitter video, Young says: "We can't continue to appease the enemies of free speech.

"As Churchill said, an appeaser is someone who keeps feeding the crocodile in the hope it will eat them last.

"Many good men and women died fighting for our right to speak our mind and exchange our ideas without being persecuted by the enforcers of intellectual conformity and moral dogma.

"This is our precious inheritance and we owe it to them as well as our children to come to its defence."

Given Young's immediate defence of Andrew Sabisky, the former Downing Street adviser caught in a eugenics row, last week, it seems he is willing to overlook anything to stand up for your right to free speech!

READ MORE:Andrew Sabisky made vile claims about women and sex on Reddit

Though of course the people who criticised Sabisky's claims and called for his sacking were also using their free speech to say he was unsuited to a government position. But he did not see it that way. They were the "enforcers of intellectual conformity", to use Young's own words.

The reality is nobody needs to spend 49.95 to protect free speech (or even 24.95 for students and retirees).

And you definitely don't need to give it to Toby Young to do it for you.

If you're in a situation where you feel your free speech is truly under threat? Perhaps it's time to call a lawyer, not a journalist who is best known for slagging off a teenage climate activist.

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Toby Young launches 50-a-year 'Free Speech Union' - The National