Description: Free speech is the bedrock on which all our other freedoms rest, yet it is currently in greater peril than at any time since the Second World War. The Free Speech Union is a non-partisan, mass-membership public interest body that stands up for the speech rights of its members.
The Free Speech Union is delighted the government has decided to do something about ‘de-banking’ . This is a sinister form of cancel culture that has no place in a modern democracy – and we deserve some of the credit for stamping it out.
As many of you will know, the Free Speech Union was de-banked by PayPal last September. We were given no notice and no proper explanation, just told our account was being closed, effective immediately. That posed a threat to our survival because about a third of our members were using PayPal to process their payments, but our appeals to the California-based company fell on deaf ears. Consequently, we kicked up an almighty fuss in the public square and, after senior politicians started asking questions, PayP
But we weren’t going to let the matter rest there. We saw this for what it was – the emergence of a Chinese-style social credit system in the UK, whereby if your political beliefs don’t align with the progressive ‘values’ of banks and payment processors you can lose access to their services. In an increasingly cashless society, that was a new and particularly effective type of censorship. It needed to be nipped in the bud.