Suppressing free speech in Britain

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/7111933.stm

'A Tory MP has resigned from The Oxford Union in protest at its decision to invite two controversial figures to a free speech event on Monday. '

'The MP, who studied at Balliol and St Antony's colleges, said the right to free speech should not guarantee access to privileged platforms.
"Nothing which happens in Monday's debate can possibly offset the boost you are giving to a couple of scoundrels who can put up with anything except being ignored," he said.
"It is sheer vanity on your part to imagine that any argument you deploy, or any vote you carry will succeed in causing them damage. '

Guaruntee access? Privileged platforms? Is it just me, or has the whole idea of free speech become bastardised beyond recognition in Britain? I have never before believed we need a bill of rights, but I'm gradually seeing one as necessary. Apart from one exception, the speech act of inciting people to murder, people should be able to say whatever they like.

Deny the holocaust if you must; propagate the 9/11 Truther myths; pray to asteroids; sing obscene ditties in the street. I'd rather have all of that than suppress any particular viewpoint. It is becoming very noticeable on the left to demand that right-wing/fascistic individuals and groups in the UK be denied any airtime, any access to the media and indeed any voice in public at all. They have no such qualms about extreme left-wing groups, strangely. Nor any such concern about Islamist groups. One of the absolutely guarunteed side-affects of suppressing right-wing political groups is to make them more attractive to poor, disenchanted white youths. 'Everybody hates us and we don't care' is a sentiment heard very often at football grounds and in poor white neighborhoods.

One of the reasons we haven't had many revolutions in Britain is we allow people to vent their frustations verbally. The more we do to cap that outlet, and the more triumphalist the people doing the suppressing, the more likely things will end badly. Very interestingly, it is often the most 'educated' people who are calling for the suppression of right wing views. Its almost become a kind of academic inquisition. The ivory tower brigade must be persuaded to give up this alarming sentiment against freedom, or perhaps its time to deprive them of some of their privileges...