New UK ‘bill of rights’ exempts government from free speech protections
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Government policies to crack down on protest and other speech exempted from new laws.
By Jon Stone, Policy Correspondent
Boris Johnson‘s new ‘bill of rights’ exempts the government itself from having to comply with its new free speech protections, legal experts have warned.
Justice secretary Dominic Raab said last week that the new charter would stop free speech from being ‘whittled away’ by ‘wokery and political correctness’.
But clauses included in the bill specifically exempt laws created by ministers from its new free speech test – meaning it will not protect people from the ‘various threats to free speech posed by the government’.
Campaigners said the bill of rights would ‘end up hampering efforts to hold the government to account’.
One senior law professor told The Independent that the carve-out was ‘very, very odd’ because bills of rights around the world, such as in the United States, tend to also apply to the government.
‘I think Americans, for example, would just be incred...
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