Boris Johnson’s government has been accused of protecting extremists who spout “hate speech” on campus by enabling them to sue universities and student groups.
Academics or visiting speakers will be able to seek compensation through the courts under the government’s controversial legislative plan to expand freedom of speech.
Labour said the plan would give free rein to Holocaust deniers, anti-vaxxers and other extremists by allowing them to spread their “harmful and divisive” ideas at universities and colleges across England.
Sir Keir Starmer’s party, which has described the bill as “troubling and dangerous”, failed on Monday evening to block its passage through parliament, with MPs rejecting an amendment that would have denied it a second reading by 367 to 216.
Speaking in the Commons before the vote, Labour’s shadow education secretary Kate Green said: “The whole House should object to a bill that amounts to legal protection for hate speech.”
Ms Green said the right to freedom of expression was already enshrined in law, adding: “Because of this bill, a group spreading division and hatred on university campuses won’t just be legally protected – they’d be able to sue a university or student union.”
The Labour MP said she worried that “harmful conspiracy theorists”, such as anti-vaxxers, would be protected to speak at universities by the proposed law.
Under the government’s plans, the Office for Students, the higher education regulator in England, would have the power to impose fines if any institution breached a condition to defend freedom of speech.
Education secretary Gavin Williamson denied that Holocaust deniers would be protected by the new law – insisting it would not override existing laws banning hate speech. “This bill will not, and never will, create a platform for holocaust deniers,” the minister told MPs.
The education secretary claimed the government wanted to tackled a “growing intolerance” across England’s campuses which was thwarting academics’ desire to “freely and fiercely seek out the truth”.
Mr Williamson even suggested Charles Darwin – the legendary naturalist who developed the theory of evolution by natural selection – might struggle to get his ideas heard at England’s universities today.
“Wouldn’t it be a tragedy if Darwin had not felt he had the freedom to be able to challenge established thinking? We have to remember, there are those Darwins out there who will challenge the consensus.”
Senior Tories claimed the government was involved in a “battle for Britain” in attempting to tackle “modern McCarthyism”, as they lined up to support the legislation.
Senior backbencher David Davis said: “Today there is a terrible outbreak of intolerance in modern society, the so-called culture wars, which remind me of nothing so much as McCarthyism in the United States … this is like the early stages of a totalitarian repression.”
But Labour said there were only a very small number of events cancelled at universities, amid claims of an worrying “cancel culture” on campus.
Ms Green said figures from the Office for Students showed that only six out of roughly 10,000 events at colleges and universities with external speakers had been cancelled last year.
