Free speech is an important principle in Britain. It’s one of the things that gets me out of bed in the morning. It’s why I so strongly believe we must remain in the ECHR, which protects in law our right to free expression. I am a supporter of free speech because whether I agree with you or not, as a liberal I’m always keen to hear what you think.
That applies as much to the vexed question of immigration as it does to anything else. I take a nuanced view on the subject, just like the majority of British people. Do I believe in open borders? Of course not. Do I think we should aim for zero net migration or pursue the harmful approach of ‘remigration’ (AKA kicking people out who currently have the right to be here)? Absolutely not.
I believe strongly that immigration has a role to play in our nation, just as it always has. We can’t pretend our public services would work without a level of immigration – not least in the health and social care sectors. We can’t pretend that our economy will thrive unless we have a level of immigration to ensure private sector vacancies are filled in sectors where we have a skills shortage. And with a birth rate below the replacement rate and falling, we cannot pretend things are going to work without a level of net migration to ensure we have enough people paying tax to fund public services like the NHS and our growing pensions bill.
On asylum, of course we need to prevent dangerous small boat crossings and have a fair, safe and controlled system. The way to do that is to work with our European and international partners, not to follow the doctrine of the Tories and Reform by pretending we can withdraw from the world.
These nuanced, commonsense positions based on reality rather than dogma often get lost in the battle between the simple arguments made by those either side of us. Consequently, I’m grateful that something I’ve said on the subject of immigration has been noticed. Indeed, it hasn’t simply been noticed – it’s gone round the world. Many users of X, right wing commentators, the Conservative Party MP Katie Lam and the US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy have leapt upon some comments I made on (checks notes) December 8 last year.
This appears to be an attempt to paint me as an illiberal would-be denier of free speech. I made the comments on a DEMOS panel discussing the question How do citizens make their voices heard in a healthy democracy? If Katie Lam or any of the people who have been writing to me over the past couple of days are reading this, please note that I have never suggested you can’t talk about immigration. You might want to believe that I am telling you not to talk about immigration, but I can assure you that as the Home Affairs spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats I spend an awful lot of time talking about immigration to all sorts of people and I welcome the chance to take part in the discussion. It’s a discussion for all of us – not just those with a hard right or nationalist viewpoint. In her Conservative Home column published today, Katie Lam attributes to me the following quote: “social media…is making sure that you can have your voice heard in a really easy way that you couldn’t in the past”. She’s doctored the quote. Here’s what I actually said:
We obviously have social media, which is a massive problem at the moment for engagement. I’m tempted to say: You know how you make your voice heard as a citizen in 2025 in the UK? Set up an X account and start writing some sort of nativist content, and it will go around the world really really quickly. Your voice will be heard as quickly as you want it to be, not in a way that I would be comfortable with and I would suggest probably not in a way that most people here this evening would be comfortable with either. But that is a really easy way to get your voice heard. Get some content about, you know, how you think immigration’s too high. Or immigration is the big thing that’s tearing the country apart, etc. And that goes around the world because social media, run by the world’s richest man, X, is now making sure that you can have your voice heard in a really easy way that you couldn’t in the past.
Despite the pile-on my largely dormant X account has been subjected to over the past couple of days, I do not believe this criticism of X is a controversial opinion. Indeed, it is now well established that X is a place where right wing viewpoints thrive and go further. If you’re able to write really controversial viewpoints on immigration and you can whip up anger on cultural issues too, you can even make money from it – just ask the MPs who have made it a successful grift. It’s also clear that those who pay for access to X can have their voices heard on a wildly outsized basis. That might be the sort of free speech those on the hard right of politics would like to see. Because that’s free speech for people like them and those who pay for the privilege. The free speech I want to see values a much broader contribution on fair and open terms.
And if you’re wondering what I thought of the rest of Katie’s Con Home article, I strongly disagreed with nearly all of it. Though I agree that we need a more open and robust debate in this country about Islamist extremism – not least the way hostile foreign state actors are fomenting hatred to undermine social cohesion in this country. We all have the right to make our own arguments. That’s the beauty of free speech. I just wish the political right valued free speech for all – not just themselves.
* Max Wilkinson is the Liberal Democrat MP for Cheltenham and the party's Home Affairs spokesperson.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The Joy of Six 1529
Liz Saville Roberts to Give the David Lloyd George Memorial Lecture at Gwyl Cricieth Festival
Labour deputy claims that Farage is a threat to democracy
We do have a two-tier policing system but it is not what our homegrown racists think it is.
Kira Collins
Peter Martin
Gordon Lishman
Roland
David Murray
9 Comments
Max erm
I’m really confused. What’s your point here?
The migration of people tends to be a net benefit to society. There’s plenty of research that provides the evidence for this, not just hand-wavey immigration is good stuff. The current and previous governments have taken the position that they must stamp it out; those from a more radical tradition would disagree strongly with that point of view.
We should welcome the fact that people want to come to the UK and share in the benefits of living in a liberal democratic society. Yes, there needs to be some level of control in terms of safety and making sure that anyone coming to the UK is a net contributor over their time in the country by taxing them (and giving them benefits when appropriate).
Asylum seekers specifically should be welcomed, processed quickly and then supported into becoming beneficial to society, not sat in a random bedsit in the middle of the country with people looking at them with suspicion.
But we also need a “legal” route for those wanting to migrate (and to bring their families). Without that, the human traffickers will continue to prosper, and as a society, we allow those who are different to continue to be demonised.
This country has embraced every wave of people that has ever come here; sometimes it takes generations (and several fights) for them to begin to feel but for many that’s what the UK has become.
Without Jews from Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands, we wouldn’t have fish and chips, chicken tikka masala is from Glasgow, but not without the influx of people from South Asia, and the success of the British music industry relies a lot on people from Africa and the Caribbean
People need to go and watch Channel4’s Home for some inspiration about how a minor shift in viewpoint can make a major difference.
@ Tara Forster
Look over at the Conservative Home article referred to (*). it presents Max (and the Lib dems generally) as an enemy of free speech and misrepresents him into the bargain. That needs to be countered.
Lam’s argument is that not talking about issues (she frames it as repressing free speech) does not make issues (specifically migration) go away. Unfortunately, merely talking about issues does not necessarily make them go away either.
It’s even worse when one side of an argument refuses to accept the compromise imposed by a legitimately elected government.
(*)https://conservativehome.com/2026/04/01/katie-lam-we-will-not-fix-our-problems-by-telling-people-to-stop-talking-about-them/
“we also need a “legal” route for those wanting to migrate (and to bring their families). Without that, the human traffickers will continue to prosper…”
Only partly true. A legal route will reduce demand to cross the channel ‘in small boats’ as some of those wanting to get into the UK would have a cheaper, safer, and more attractive alternative way to achieve their goal. However, unless we have open borders, there will always be continuing demand from those who are denied permission to move to the UK using those legal routes (if Asylum claims were assessed prior to being allowed to travel to the UK) or from those who are allowed to move to the UK to lodge an asylum claim claim, are denied asylum and removed, and then are determined to return.
The only way to break the economic model of those human traffickers providing channel crossings in small boats is to prevent those small boats completing their journey to the UK – demand to cross that way will quickly drop to zero when the numbers reaching that way drop to zero. Obviously, I would only support preventing the small boats crossing once a legal route is available to genuine asylum seekers.
Yes free speech is important providing it is used accurately and to good public purpose.
The law on harassment is used to stifle it though. I know of cases where harassment charges have been brought to court with no intention of the trial going ahead. It is simply a device to allow the court to impose an injunction closing down free expression.
Under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (Section 5A) a court can make an injunction supposedly to protect a person from harassment, even if no evidence is presented by the prosecution.
So, for example, even though it is not against the law to expose someone who may have secured a conviction against an innocent person by perjury, it is against the law to break an injunction to try to publicly establish this.
The free speech I want to see values a much broader contribution on fair and open terms.
X has fair and open terms; none more so. The X recommendation algorithm is unique in being published and open source…
https://github.com/xai-org/x-algorithm
Anyone with a knowledge of Rust and Python can download it and examine the code. Here’s a detailed analysis and explanation of how it works…
‘How the X (Twitter) Algorithm Works in 2026 (6 Ranking Factors Revealed)’ [March 2026]:
https://posteverywhere.ai/blog/how-the-x-twitter-algorithm-works
Peter Martin says ‘Yes free speech is important providing it is used accurately and to good public purpose.’
That provision in effect curtails free speech. Who decides whether it is ‘accurate’ or for ‘good public purpose’? Are those not precisely the things people need freedom to argue about?
The only justifiable limits on free speech are those that prohibit incitement to violence or defamation.
@ Michael James,
You make a fair point. I’d agree that with your last sentence with the proviso that defamation should be interpreted as being the publication of a false statement. There probably should be some exceptions to prohibit the publication of tittle tattle, which can serve no public purpose, regarding the personal details of individuals. The law does cover this to a certain extent. A newspaper shouldn’t, for example, be able to publish details of anyone’s medical history without permission.
The law, as it stands, goes much further though. It can be classed as an offence to publish truthful information, even though it very much does have public relevance, if the person concerned can persuade the CPS to bring a charge of harassment before the courts. The prosecution, as said in my previous comment, doesn’t even need to present any evidence.