right to speak freely must apply to everyone - even if most sane Britons would disagree vehemently with Holocaust apologists

Context should not affect free speech | Posted by Christopher Hope on 26 Nov 2007 at 19:29

Victor Ward emails to point out that Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, seems to think free speech is OK for some, but not for others. Phillips told the BBC yesterday that asking Nick Griffin and David Irving to debate free speech at the Oxford Union was an “absolute disgrace”.
...
Yet in February last year Phillips took what appeared to be a more reasoned view when he argued that “people should be allowed to offend each other” in Britain.

Mr Phillips - then chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality - told ITV’s Jonathan Dimbleby programme: “One point of Britishness is that people can say what they like about the way we should live, however absurd, however unpopular it is."

Context is everything (in February 2006 Phillips was discussing whether Muslims should accept that freedom of speech is central to Britishness).

But as I blogged earlier, the right to speak freely must apply to everyone - even if most sane Britons would disagree vehemently with the arguments put forward by BNP supporters and Holocaust apologists.