No to Digital ID

Britain is no free country. Speech is routinely punished: criminally, financially, and otherwise. This is a result of existing law, which must go. That is the purpose of The Freedom of Speech Act (2026). @prestonjbyrne, @legalstyleblog, @ASI adamsmith.org/research/the-f…

On the Crime and Policing Act 2026: The Act is better known as the incest and choking role-play ban – banning pornogrpahy depicting these things, with criminal penalties of up to 5 years for possessing or distributing content showing consenting adults engaging in these things. The gambit here is that nobody will have the nerve to point the over-policing and chilling effect laws like the CPA (2026) will bring about – because they would be seen to be deviant by defending fetish content. It is all hung on the fact age play seems inappropriate – just like the OSA was sold on the basis of "protecting children" – when it was in fact a regulatory empowerment bill, giving Ofcom powers over access to the internet in Britain. That includes the doxxing requirement of government ID being required to access sites like X/Twitter. This is no different to the compliances we saw following the Online Safety Act (2023)'s powers; where platforms over-policed and restricted information and speech outside its scope, content which patently poses no real harm to anybody. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 (criminalising possession, circulation and production and putting this content clearly in the domain of police) and the Online Safety Act 2023 (which allows Ofcom to enforce removal against platforms) rely on the squeamishness of observers to persist. Squeamishness – in so many realms of civic life – is truly the final frontier for Britain. Hamstrung by the domestic populace's tendency toward civility and polite avoidance. The populace will need to grit its teeth, and overcome this through demands for wide-ranging appeals to censorship laws, in order to wrest expressive freedoms back from an increasingly dystopian state.

Didn't take long for Burnham's pledge to scrap digital ID (@NoToDigitalID) to be revealed as entirely hollow. Showing your passport as a prerequisite to engage with the online world is still remains state policy. The solution was never digital ID requirements (doxxing of every user) as mandatory for every internet user in the UK and her territories. In reality, the solution was not this – it was having the family computer in the living room or the kitchen, and giving your child a nokia, rather than an Android. Standing on the graves of children and reaching for the tools of censorship will always be seen for what it is. The only antidote to the multi-faceted censorship state in Britain is low-tech approaches to parenting, and passing the @ASI Freedom of Speech Bill: adamsmith.org/research/the-f…

Obviosly this stuff is fantastic PR. The Burnham admin is essentially running on pint-guzzling imagery alone. Now, imagine this, but the budgets, policies, the legislative programme, was a radical assault on Britain's malaise rather than meagre tinkering. Some ideas on that, in full bill form, in @ReinersProject: reiners.org.uk/bills/

Indistinguishable from England in 2026 The key difference being the illegality of the VPN. Half of the population are using them presently, twice the uptake of the global average to continue using services unfettered by the OSA 2023; this will Increase. Worth noting this is essentially a tax on free net use, and throttles speeds considerably in the process. Half of the population are paying, and enjoying remedial speeds as a result.

Starmer was dangerous on fundamental liberties because he could recite the precise sections of legislation, which when deployed to their "full force", can suppress them entirely. Burnham is dangerous because he does not, but intends to continue with that programme whilst roleplaying as the 6th member of Oasis. Until the legislative tools of British censorship are repealed, censorship will continue. That situation will persist under a Conservative, Reform, Green or Restore government who do not enact a Freedom of Speech Bill containing the necessary repeals, and ideally, a positive right to contend with regulators and employers. Here is one @prestonjbyrne, @legalstyleblog & I made earlier: adamsmith.org/research/the-f…

We’re getting flying cars and mars colonies before Britain adopts adequate protections for its population’s freedom to speak. Such protections would finally prevent the state from criminalising you, or regulating you into destitution, for mere words - political, online, ‘grossly offensive’, or otherwise. If you were curious about what a Freedom of Speech Bill might look like, @prestonjbyrne, @legalstyleblog & I wrote the model bill in April, here: adamsmith.org/research/the-f… I’ll be explaining why it is necessary, and defending its contents, at @acadofideas’s Battle of Ideas debate tomorrow at noon.

Another terrible week for The Freedom of Speech in Britain. Passing The Freedom of Speech Bill (2026) appears to be the only proportionate solution offered thus far This week; Robert Jenrick (@RobertJenrick) & John Cleese (@JohnCleese) were referred to prevent – Britain's anti-terror watchdog – and @oldspeak_books being visited by police in a textbook fishing exercise over online speech. This clip, from my discussion with the inimitable @NickDixon is of renewed relevance, full video here: youtu.be/1m_wp7YdmMY?si=m2O2…

Let's say it out loud shall we: 1) Access to the internet, a decentralised space in which the ordinary normie can be put face to face with the ravages of demographic change (Anglo-British people will be a minority in births by 2030) cannot be premitted. That kind of transfer of information cannot be allowed without total identification-based surveillance. 2) Allowing the demographic change to vote for their largest patron party? That is a must, and, one with key electoral incentives for the Labour Party if it is to survive a collapse of our two party system. We are a nation living in a twee, self-denial riddled, Big Brother House.