Free Speech and Katie Hopkins

Free speech means accepting that people will say things we don't like and retaining The Faith.

Katie Hopkins is a controversial individual. She’s a totemic hate-figure to many on the Left and is often lumped together with Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Enoch Powell as the unacceptable face of populist right-wing politics. She is treated with a contemptuous derision by social media left wing commentators and is usually patronised by those in the mainstream, who raise her as a spectre of anarchy, an example of a half-witted, bilious demagogue whose words will inflame the socially deplorable elements of society unless she and a few others are kept in check and we all ‘follow the rules’.

Very few in the public eye receive the systematic vitriol poured upon her. She is hounded by trolls and is flagellated by the majority of the media for everything she does including joining weight watchers. With many, many people, it is personal, and she, for them, is the epitome of everything they despise: racist, reactionary, nationalistic, boisterous and fame-loving. How much of that characterisation is real or not has been lost in the vapours generated by their boiling loathing of her.

She has not always helped herself, to be fair. She has attacked people on social media in flamboyant and egregious ways. She has not held back on topics when wiser counsel would have been to handle them with care; often, she does not seem to draw a distinction between drawing attention to a situation and inflaming it. It has cost her: she had to sell her house to pay legal costs when sued for some tweets she published. She has alienated prominent people and she has attacked others relentlessly for their politics, making enemies as she did so. She has been extremely loud, offensive and has exploited the vitriol of the Left quite purposely, knowing how to make herself a prolific and, by some, an adored voice on the populist Right. Much to the fury of the Consensus.

Immigration is one issue that is very difficult to speak about reasonably and dispassionately as it has been confounded by its association with a dicriminatory agenda. To be anti-immigration is to be racist in the eyes of many. The Left has accused the Right of using the word as a code for being anti-minority (with some justification); the Right accuses the Left of weaponising immigration to destroy a coherent national culture (with some justification); and that is only the beginning of the argument. On such matters, Katie Hopkins is quite happy to leap right in, ignore sensibilities and pronounce her inflammatory, anti-immigration views on the topic; predictably, the backlash is scalding and continuous, and, coincidentally, carves her out a nice base of millions of supporters.

Katie Hopkins may repel more people than she attracts with her antics - although it may be the inverse of that assumption - however, she does speak about issues that are important. She has a right to do so; and if we wish to live in a society that values free speech then she should be allowed to have her say and if people wish to listen to her, and they’re prepared to pay, then she should be allowed to have a venue to speak in and not be peremptorily banned by local councils or theatre governing boards that are state funded and who think they can decide what it is the rest of us can listen to or watch. Katie Hopkins is a litmus test for free speech in this regard. She is also a test of how much do we want to live in a free society.

As with Nigel Farage’s de-banking farango, there is a myopic foolishness in celebrating when a political enemy is erased. You may want them to lose, but to be shut-down from the economic and social circuitry of society? No, that is going too far. I hope in this country we have not degenerated to the point of semi-skimmed Stalinists where a complete voiding of a person we disagree with, no matter with what level of exuberance, is the desired resolution of the conflict. Such an aim diminishes us. It tears our social bonds apart and adds poisonous bitterness to society that will be difficult to extract. It threatens our capacity to be a genuine democracy and the ability to be a legitimate citizen.

Everyone should be allowed to fully partake in society and be able to speak freely. Although, usually on the Left at the present time, this liberty conjures images of small-minded, shaven-headed bigots gathering in village halls cheering the icons of nationhood and planning revenge on the minorities and the treacherous, pink-hued infiltrators that are destroying the country, it is not what history has shown us happens. Free speech has destroyed feudalism; over-turned slavery; emancipated women; empowered workers and checked, where it has been allowed to gain ground, the more brutal aspects of corporate capitalism.

Indeed, it is only in the places and issues where free speech is repressed that problems remain. We’re not allowed to talk about France’s exploitation in uranium mining, so it remains; we’re not allowed to criticise the military for endless wars, so they remain; we’re not allowed to report on slave markets in Libya after ‘liberation’ or war crimes by ‘allies’ in Syria or Yemen, so they are ongoing. When free speech is suppressed, truth is mutilated and then, at some point, people and communities.

We should and must keep our faith in total and complete free speech. Whether you like or dislike what Katie Hopkins has to say, then let’s hope we can live in a society where we can like or dislike it because she’s saying it as publicly as she wishes. And who knows? She might be right on the topics she raises; or it might spark a useful debate; or it might make us think about why she is wrong. That is the glory of free speech - it provokes free thought - it adds to the dominion of freedom.

Katie Hopkins will be one of the comedians at the Speakeasy Comedy Club, hosted by Common Knowledge on the 24th August, in Edinburgh. The venue will be revealed to ticket holders 24 hours beforehand. You can purchase as ticket here.

And…

On the 17th August, in Edinburgh, we will be having a free-thinking, free-speaking comedy night with a special comedy guest. Join us for three hours of freedom and laughter. You can buy a ticket here.