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Ep 359 | The UK's Speech Laws Are Absolutely Mental | Guest: Reem Ibrahim
01:01:06
Matt Kibbe sits down with Reem Ibrahim, head of media for the Institute of Economic Affairs, to discuss how Britain has become so authoritarian.
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- [00:00]
Matt Kibbe
Welcome to Kibbe On Liberty. I'm talking to Reem Ibrahim, head of media at the Institute for Economic affairs in London, about the absolute bonkers speech policing that's going on in the UK and how that might impact the fight for liberty. Check it out. Welcome to Kibby On Liberty. Reem, welcome to this side of the pond.
- [00:56]
Reem Ibrahim
Thank you for having me.
- [00:57]
Matt Kibbe
Yeah. So you're in town causing trouble.
- [01:01]
Reem Ibrahim
Indeed.
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Matt Kibbe
And I wanted to talk to you primarily about the insanity that's going on in the UK with the speech police. And you were telling me before we started that you guys are currently arresting 33 people a day for mean tweets.
- [01:18]
Reem Ibrahim
Yes, on average. On average, for speech crimes, about 33 a day. So this was data that was obtained by the Times and looked at the year 2023, and it's more than 12,000 people in 2023 have been arrested for speech crimes. So that is, on average, about 33 a day.
- [01:35]
Matt Kibbe
So there's no, like, real crime that the police should be focused on?
- [01:39]
Reem Ibrahim
Yeah, no, we've solved everything. So we have absolutely zero theft, no burglaries, nothing bad happens. It's just speech that we're concerned about. No, of course not. I mean, look, the amount of money that in resources that must be spent on crimes like this is. I mean, it's absolutely astronomical. But I think part of the problem is that real crime, real crime is very difficult to solve. But police can then say, well, look, we have solved X amount of crimes when actually most of them are just violations of freedom of expression.
- [02:10]
Matt Kibbe
It's like writing parking tickets.
- [02:13]
Reem Ibrahim
It is. It's an easy win.
- [02:14]
Matt Kibbe
Right.
- [02:15]
Reem Ibrahim
The police can say, look, I've done this amazing thing.
- [02:16]
Matt Kibbe
Are there fines? Is this like a cash cow?
- [02:19]
Reem Ibrahim
There have been fines for certain things. I mean, I don't necessarily think that it is actually the predominant reason. It's effectively a bunch of legislation that has basically been on the statute books for about 20 years, and they have only up until this point started to be used as effectively violations of free speech. So it's interesting, a lot of people are actually being put into prison for a lot of these things. So you're being arrested and then you're being detained. The most prolific case was the case of Lucy Connolly, who was arrested last summer. So I think she's interesting because she had no criminal record before. There was absolutely nothing that she had done before. It wasn't like this. This person had committed loads of crimes. Her husband is a Conservative councillor in the. In the local council, so he's a politician Locally. And she's just a mum. And she had, you know, she's a mum. She was sitting at home and we saw the Southport murders in which a man who was, I think he was about 17 when he actually committed the crime, came in with a machete to a Taylor Swift themed dance class and brutally murdered eight year old girls. And it was horrible. It completely shocked the nation. And Lucy Connolly was one of those people that were really, really upset by it. So she took to Twitter, as many people do, and she said something along the lines of, effectively, we should burn down those asylum seeker hotels in which we are housing asylum seekers. The presumpt being that the man that committed this crime was an asylum seeker and take the government with them for all I care. She tweeted that, went on a walk, came back four hours later and deleted it because she thought that it was a bit harsh. She was then sentenced to 31 months in prison for that one tweet. 31 months. She's now since been released. She was released early, but she served about nine months of that sentence. That is absolutely astronomical that a. It doesn't matter who it is, but this is a mother who is, has never committed any other crime before, is being arrested and given the harshest sentence possible purely for her speech. Now, the argument was that she was inciting hatred. That meant that there was a genuine case for people to actually act on that and then hurt asylum seekers. But there is absolutely no evidence that anybody that read that tweet went out and hurt anybody. And even if they did, I would argue that that is on them. And I don't think that speech is enough of a reason to be incited into that. So it's one of the worst cases I think we've seen, but there have been countless others and as I said, an average of 33 arrests a day. On speech.
- [05:03]
Matt Kibbe
Yeah. So the comedian Graham Lineham, who I've already talked about on this show, and he strikes me, correct me if I'm wrong, he's very much a provocateur. He's kind of pissed off now about being canceled for insisting that there's only two genders.
- [05:20]
Reem Ibrahim
Yes.
- [05:22]
Matt Kibbe
So he's sort of taken on this Lenny Bruce type Persona where he's going to say things that he knows are on the edge of what the law allows. But he infamously was arrested at the airport, strip searched and just like, just made an example of. And it, it like, that's. I think that's when a lot of us really started noticing how bonkers the UK has gotten.
- [05:49]
Reem Ibrahim
Yeah, because he was in the US So. He was in the US he was chilling. He was tweeting stuff about transgender people and effectively saying something along the lines of, if you are a woman and you are in a woman's bathroom and a man comes into the woman's bathroom, you should call the police. Or better yet, if you've got no other options, punch them in the balls. The joke being that they're going to be tall enough that that is possible. You know, a bit of a humorous joke, but I think there was an element of seriousness. He is, as you've said, sort of made his name by being a huge provocateur. He's a comedian, right? He is a comedian. His job is to make people laugh. That is literally what his job is. And he was arrested for it. He actually ended up in hospital as well because he. I think he had some sort of heart problem. And during the arrest, he literally land at Heathrow Airport. Bearing in mind there are only about, I think, about 5,000 armed personnel ready in the United Kingdom or in England and Wales. Sorry. And five of those people were there to arrest Graeme Linehan, which is absolutely insane. It's absurd. And the argument is that he incited racial. He incited hatred. Sorry. He incited hatred and told people to go and commit suicide. Something that was a physical act of violence, I. E. Punching trans people in the balls in the women's bathroom. So that was enough to arrest him. It's absurd that we've gotten into this situation. And this is where I think people are starting to wake up to the fact that if a joke is a crime, that means that you are able to actually be imprisoned. We are in a pretty awful situation. So there are cases like this. So Lucy Connolly and Graham Linehum, I think, are some really interesting cases. There's also people that have been arrested for not speaking at all, but for thinking so. Abortion clinics. There are many women's health clinics across the United Kingdom, generously provided for by the taxpayer, of course, because we've got a socialist healthcare system. And so there have been people, a lot of them young women, that have prayed silently in their heads outside of abortion clinics, just standing outside, completely silent and praying in their minds. And the videos are out there. You can find it online. People have been arrested for praying silently in their heads because the government have implemented buffer zones, which means that it is illegal to do so. The government cannot tell what you are saying in your head. This is insane. And the presumption is just there. The presumption is if you're standing outside an abortion clinic, you're probably praying silently in your head and that is. That thought is a crime no matter what it is. Indeed, no matter what it is.
- [08:28]
Matt Kibbe
How dare you.
- [08:29]
Reem Ibrahim
You could be thinking, you could be singing like, I don't know, a children's nursery rhyme in your head for all they care. But no, it's a crime because they think that you're praying. And I mean, this is an aspect of religious freedom. But these are three cases, I think, that sort of represent exactly what is going on here, which is the fear that speech is dangerous. And you hear a lot of, a lot of language being used effectively saying that language itself is violence. And this is really, I think, where a lot of this is stemming from, because as I said, a lot of the legislation already exists. Right. So Graham Linehum, I believe, was arrested based on different aspects of it. There is the Malicious Communications act, there is various other pieces of legislation that mean that it is illegal to speak. And I think it's important just to go through exactly what they are. So there is section 19 of the Public Order act, which also includes the idea that you cannot incite that hatred. Right, so you are saying that your language is what is the problem. And what that means is that if there is psychological harm, supposed subjective psychological harm involved, that means that there is the opportunity for the police to then investigate. There are also non crime hate incidents where the government, the police, that's the.
- [09:47]
Matt Kibbe
Name of the law, right? Non crime hate incident.
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Reem Ibrahim
Yes. So the government, the police are able to register you as having committed a non crime hate incident, you've been hateful. So we're going to put your details, your personal details on a register with the police. But we're not going to arrest you, we are just going to come to your house and inform you of the fact that you've committed a non crime hate incident. It's absolutely absurd, the situation that we've come to. But I also think it's important to note that these are like real lives that have been hurt by this. This isn't just people like Graham Letterholme, who is a comedian, who is perfectly happy to fight for free speech in the way that he does. But people like Lucy Connolly who have had their lives ruined, I mean, Lucy's daughter, I believe, had some troubles at school when she was in prison. And I mean, obviously having your mum be sent to prison over a tweet especially is something that would hurt any family. But the real human stories here I think are important to highlight because These people are not criminals. Violence is violence. Speech is not violence. Physical violence is violence. That is literally the definition of violence. For goodness sake, speech cannot be violent. And the fact that we're looking at those in these harmful ways I think is really, really important to note.
- [11:08]
Matt Kibbe
So a lot of these laws, I think the non crime hate incident is a newish law. But a lot of these laws go back quite some time, but they've only recently been weaponized. And it also strikes me that there's a political agenda behind who's being targeted.
- [11:26]
Reem Ibrahim
Yes, so there is definitely a double standard here. Let's go through some of the legislation that this has been called. So section 19 of the Public Order Act I mentioned, that was from 1986. So this piece of legislation has been on the statute books for a very long time, longer than before I was even born. And what it says is a person who publishes or distributes written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred. Again, your intention is pretty subjective. Or having regard to all the circumstances, racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby. So it's the consequence of the speech. What people do when they listen to your speech is what you are being arrested on the basis of, not the crime itself, but what happens afterwards. And I think that that is particularly disturbing. Section127 of the Communications act, which is in 2003 and that says that a person is guilty of an offence if he sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obsessive, obscene or menacing character.
- [12:36]
Matt Kibbe
Grossly offensive.
- [12:38]
Reem Ibrahim
I think everything that we say, Matt, is grossly offensive or causes any such message or matter to be so sent. So it is so subjective. I mean offensive or an indecent, obscene or menacing character.
- [12:51]
Matt Kibbe
It's a blank check.
- [12:52]
Reem Ibrahim
It's a blank check to basically encompass a lot of things. Now this is what's interesting, I think. Let's go with the third piece, legislation I wanted to mention and then will expand on this because this is from Section 1 of the Malicious Communications act, which again is from 1988. So before I was born, before this century, any person who sends to another person a letter, electronic communication or article of any description which conveys a message which is indecent or grossly offensive. So effectively all three of these clauses in this legislation are incredibly vague. But what that means is that before, basically since before the pandemic, that legislation has, generally speaking, not been used to completely violate people's rights to freedom of expression. They've been used at discretion. But the UK has never had free speech. We have never had the fundamental right to freely express ourselves. But politicians have generally speaking on speech, and government officials have generally speaking on speech, been sensible. This legislation is clearly not sensible, but it means that the people that want to actually come after those that are politically opposed to them can do so because legislation already existed. The legislation was already there and it allows them to then use that against those people. So when it comes to fears around mass migration or being afraid of somebody going in with a machete and murdering eight year old girls, those politically charged situations obviously bear risk. And the government are afraid. The government are afraid of people and that is why they are cracking down on speech. That is fundamentally the problem here. Now, when the Graham Linehan situation happened, the Prime Minister said, oh, that's a bit harsh, isn't it? You know, nothing else happened. They said, you know, I don't think it's very good use of police time. No shit. Obviously it's not very good use of police time. The fact that the government are literally spending police money and resources. Five armed police officers arresting a guy for a tweet, this is insane. But this is the point, right? This legislation has already existed. It is a cultural shift that we are experiencing. It is the fact that the opportunities were already there in legislation and officials have now been able to co opt it and use it to effectively silence their political opponents.
- [15:15]
Matt Kibbe
Thank you for joining me today on.
- [15:16]
Kibbe On Liberty Announcer
Kibbe on Liberty and for being part of our fiercely independent audience. Every week my organization, Free the People, partners with BlazeTV to bring you this show. My guests bring smart perspectives on everything from current events to timeless philosophical debates. If you like what you hear, go to freethepeople.org kol and support Kibbe on Liberty so we can continue to produce these honest conversations with interesting people. Now let's get back to it.
- [15:46]
Matt Kibbe
Did I read that it's particularly dangerous to criticize an elected official in the uk? Is that a special class or.
- [15:56]
Reem Ibrahim
It's not that it's a special class, but it's the fact that they probably have the money and resources and lawyers to then go after you?
- [16:02]
Matt Kibbe
Yeah.
- [16:03]
Reem Ibrahim
So it's sort of, if you are criticizing somebody that is a public figure, somebody that has a bit more money, you are able to get them. I mean, look, you could get them for libel, right, in most countries, but in the uk, the fact that it is a crime for a lot of this speech, naturally, where there Are those protected characteristics things like inciting racial hatred? You know, racial hatred is really, really protecting. A lot of these arrests have come as a result of that. And the problem is we have seen rising levels of immigration, a lot of it due to the enormous welfare state and it's acting as a magnet. People are upset. We have hotels in towns that have never really experienced immigration in a proper sense and these hotels are being taxpayer funded and you've got a concentration of those people. Now as an open borders libertarian, I'm like, well let's just like take away the taxpayer funded elements of this and let those people, people work. They're not allowed to work when they are on the asylum backlog. So you have thousands of people that are basically young, 20, 30 year old men that are completely idle because they're not allowed to work. And if they are working, it's in the black market, it's in the gig economy, it's in what we might call the shadow economy. And there is a lot of crime as a result of that. We've seen very recently a lot of those people committing crime, a lot of them committing sexual crimes. And that obviously makes people very, very upset. They're saying why are they here in the first place? But expressing whatever your view is on the policy, expressing concern over these issues is criminally liable. I mean that, that's really what's the insane part of this. But we've never had freedom of expression and that's why I've argued we need a First Amendment. We need, we need the fundamental right to freedom of expression that is constitutionally enshrined. But in the UK we don't have a constitution so there is no fundamental way to protect those individual rights. And Americans just don't know how good they've got it.
- [18:07]
Matt Kibbe
Yeah, well, we'll talk about the erosions on our First Amendment rights. But I am curious when the PM has to say that's a little bit too far. There has to be some spirit amongst the citizens that they have a right to speak their mind against a government policy. Is there blowback? Is the government gone too long and does that have political consequences?
- [18:35]
Reem Ibrahim
There are. So I would say on this government in particular the politics is very different. I mean online you will see a lot of criticism for a lot of the lack of freedom of expression. I've been writing about it in the media. There's of lot a lots of other commentators that are not necessarily libertarian, but they are generally speaking pro freedom in that sense. And when it comes to speech that it tends to be something that some people on the left and the right can coalesce around. But in terms of, like the real world for real politicians, a lot of Brits support this stuff. You know, there isn't that fundamental desire for freedom of expression. You know, if this was happening and lots and lots of people in the UK were completely outraged, as I think would be the case, by the way, if this happened in the us, then people would take the streets and say, no, like, we are going to fight for our fundamental rights. There isn't that culture of liberty in the uk. A lot of people think it's perfectly sensible to arrest people for these tweets. I mean, I've seen it. Polling also suggests that a lot of people are. The Brits are quite nanny status. They quite enjoy the government intervening in their lives. And that's one of the banes of my existence. But it also means that, unfortunately, when it comes to very real, very serious situations like this, in which people like Lucy Connelly, who is a young mother, was being arrested for literally one single tweet that was up for about four hours, that she then subsequently deleted, was sentenced to 31 months. And lots and lots of commentators, especially those on the left, were saying, good, she's an evil, horrible, racist monster. She's committed a crime. She's incited people to go and burn down hotels because those people that commit those crimes are doing it, because they read this tweet, obviously nothing else. And so you actually get a lot of support for this stuff. And honestly, Matt, this is where it gets quite scary, because if you don't have a culture of liberty in a country, then there isn't anything pushing back. There isn't that fundamental drive to fight back. And it's something that I think. I don't know why, I can't quite pinpoint it, but in the US it does exist. If any of this had happened in the us, I think that you would get Republicans and Democrats on all sides of the aisle coming, coming out against this and saying, no, this is really wrong. The government has no right to arrest people for a tweet. But in the uk, there isn't that fundamental drive for liberty. And I don't really know how to install it in people. If you can give me some advice, that would be great.
- [21:08]
Matt Kibbe
Well, I need to update you on where we are, because we're not nearly as absolutist on speech as we used to be. And this kind of an awakening on all of this was when particularly the Biden administration had created this entire Apparatus with Homeland Security and FBI, CIA, DoD, something called CISA within Homeland Security, which we'd never even heard of before. We're going through in a very granular way and looking at your Uncle Bob's tweets, and if you make a joke about Hunter Biden's laptop, or if you make a joke about COVID lockdowns, or if you question the official narrative on things. They were harassing tech companies, mostly harassing. But I think there was a lot of willing participation amongst tech companies. It very much looks like what you guys are doing, what the Digital Services act looks like in the European Union. In some ways it's a positive thing because I think free speech online caught authoritarians off guard and it's very hard to control. Like, if you're going to cancel a comedian, you can do that. You can persecute that guy. You can even lock him up. It might look bad, but you can do that. But how do you round up all the Uncle Bobs or all the moms who have opinions? And sometimes those opinions are inconvenient for the government narrative. And so I think we're in this test right now as to whether or not the First Amendment is in fact a protection. It's worked pretty well. But in the high tech world, there seems to be a lot of people that are flexible on that and we'll see what the courts do.
- [23:04]
Reem Ibrahim
Is it the Brandenburg test? Is that what it's called? Where there was the guy that was. And again, my details on this are shaky, but if there is like imminent lawless action, and that's sort of the test that decides whether or not something is interpreted as being protected in the First Amendment. Because obviously, I mean, really, before the 20th century, the First Amendment wasn't used to protect people's freedom of expression in that way. But it's sort of since that period of time that we have seen that more absolutist interpretation. And now obviously that has been circumvented. I mean, didn't Trump sign an executive order trying to ban burning of the American flag? I mean, that has already been sort of proven in the Supreme Court to have been protected in the First Amendment.
- [23:49]
Matt Kibbe
So that's symbolic pandering.
- [23:53]
Reem Ibrahim
Yes.
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Matt Kibbe
It won't actually happen, or it's written in a way that it's meaningless, I believe, in that particular case. But there's more shocking executive orders that came out of the Trump administration specifically targeting antisemitism, and it's the definition from the Biden administration. And in practice, antisemitism is Anybody that criticizes the government of Israel, it has nothing to do with anti Semitism. And so you have a bunch of students on campus protesting what's happening in Gaza, which I would consider the ultimate expression of free speech, as long as it's not violent. I mean, there were instances on campuses where protesters were harassing Jewish students and blocking them from getting to class. That's not speech, that's violence. Speech is speech. Violence is violence, as you said so eloquently. So it strikes me that the loophole that endangers the First Amendment in our country is probably a lot of the things that we implemented after 9, 11, the Patriot act, surveillance. And it's now become like when you go back and read these things to an outsider, they sound quite sensible. But then you discover as Tulsi Gabbard just released this memo, Biden administration era memo that was relabeling parents going to school board meetings as domestic terrorists. The T word is quite potent because if you're a terrorist, all bets are off. Like you don't have rights and maybe we'll blow up your boat that's off the Venezuelan coast. Or maybe you're a mom that is really pissed off about school lockdowns. Well, if you're a terrorist, you don't really have any right to free speech. So we're having this fight right now. But I do think that there is a very American instinct to want to be able to speak freely.
- [26:00]
Reem Ibrahim
Yes. And that doesn't exist elsewhere. I think it stems from why America exists. I mean, it stems from the revolution. Because fundamentally, when have you guys letting this go yet? I think we're just about there. I think we're just about there. We've gone through some therapy. We're sort of thinking about the breakup. And it's been almost 250 years, so I think we're. I think we're ready to move on, actually. Perhaps you guys could adopt us as a 51st state. That would be great. We would be the poorest. Mississippi is the poorest American state and the UK would be the poorest if we joined. We have a lower GDP per capita than the Mississippi, by the way.
- [26:42]
Matt Kibbe
That's a shocking data point.
- [26:43]
Reem Ibrahim
Yeah, it's insane. Britain is poor. Shock. Socialism makes us poorer on speech. I think it's fascinating because there is that fundamental drive for. And I actually think this does relate to the economics because in the US there is this kind of drive for entrepreneurship, for wealth. You know, being wealthy is a good thing. I know this might sound groundbreaking, but that is not the case in the uk. If you are wealthy or you pursue wealth, that is seen as negative, that is almost taboo. It's sort of the British culture of pretending that you're poorer than you are. You know, that definitely exists within the culture. And I actually think that the cultural shifts that we've seen over the last few years towards a government that further intervenes in our lives, whether it be in speech or whether it be in any other aspect of our lives. The government parliament have introduced legislation to completely ban the sale of tobacco for example. And a lot of that is being championed by the Conservative Party. You know, the Conservative Party introduced this legislation into Parliament. So there isn't that drive for freedom on basically both sides of the political aisle, which is quite scary. And the use of the word terrorist I think is absolutely something that applies to the UK as well. Well, where the government's own prevent scheme has said that being afraid of mass immigration is, can count you towards being a potential terrorist. Which and lots of people online were making fun of this saying, well I guess we're all terrorists now. But what that does is it dilutes the word. And it means that as you said, if you're a terrorist you have no rights. Most people are in agreement. At least there is this sort of modern consensus that if you are a terrorist, all of those rights go away. Well, if we're all terrorists, then we all have no rights. And I think that this is what's really quite scary is as soon as you begin to dilute those really awful words, the far right, the fascists, the terrorists, these are really, really, really strong words that should only be used to apply to those that genuinely are those things. And using these words so freely means that that taking away rights more liberally or more widespread is sort of seen as okay.
- [29:01]
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- [29:39]
Matt Kibbe
So I'm going to hit you. This is a total rabbit hole question that has not that much to do with what we've been talking about. And I asked this of Matt Ridley and I want to get your opinion, because I did this series called the COVID up and when I was talking to Matt Taibbi, he put a particular emphasis on when you're talking about the censorship industrial complex, there's a coalition called the Five Eyes, basically the English speaking countries, uk, us, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. And they also happen to be the countries that locked down really hard really quickly. And I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, but I would argue that locking down in the US completely derailed Trump's potential of getting reelected because you can't turn the economy back on and you unleashed all these authoritarian instincts. Same thing happened to Boris Johnson.
- [30:43]
Reem Ibrahim
Yeah.
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Matt Kibbe
And so, like the two Conservatives, like the insurgents who were upsetting the apple cart of the political establishment, they were the ones that went down.
- [30:57]
Reem Ibrahim
They did. It's interesting, in the UK context, Boris Johnson was very, very, very popular. And some would argue there are people that deny that that popularity ever declined. Right. But what had happened is, during the lockdowns, we had the Partygate problems in which, effectively these huge scandals came out in which photographs of parties where there was no social distancing and people were having a good time in number 10 in government, whilst the lockdowns were at their highest. We also had, under Boris Johnson, Matthew Hancock, who was a government minister, had an affair during lockdown. Again, people were less upset about the affair, were very liberal, but we actually cared more about the fact that he broke lockdown rules by having this affair. And there was this God awful photograph from the CCTV images of him, like, holding this woman's arse and it was just very bad. I was just, I feel sorry for her. That was not. That was not a macho move.
- [31:56]
Matt Kibbe
Anyway, self censorship is.
- [31:58]
Reem Ibrahim
Self censorship wouldn't be. Something should have been applied there. It should have been applied. But what's fascinating is that the politics around this was, how dare they make one rule for themselves and one rule for us. And there was an apology and, oh, you know, I'm really sorry for my involvement in Partygate and all of this stuff. But what you've done is you've locked down the country, you've told people that they are not allowed to leave their homes, you have ripped apart families and relationships and you have basically taken away this, the strata of humanity which is human interaction. It is being able to shake somebody's hand, it is being a four year old in school and being able to hug your friend. Those human interactions were taken away by the government, but they still had them.
- [32:45]
Matt Kibbe
A Conservative government, a conserv.
- [32:47]
Reem Ibrahim
So called Conservative government. Although I'll tell you, I don't think that there is anything really conservative about the party that was in government before last year's election. They presided over the highest tax burden since the Second World War. We had a higher tax burden under the Conservative government than we did under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. They presided over public spending increasing to about 44% of GDP. They presided over cash injections into the public sector, which meant that huge amounts of money was being spread. I mean, you guys had the same problem with the Fed, but the bank of England in the UK responded to the lockdowns through quantitative easing, which meant that we had double digit inflation. I mean, the lockdowns had enormous social and economic costs. Absolutely enormous, both in the economic sense, because as you said, you can't just turn the economy back on when you've turned it off and we have huge amounts of debt as a result of it. But also those were political choices. This isn't just some third party thing that happened to us. No, no, no. The lockdowns we did ourselves. The government did it to us. It's not something that could have been. That was inevitable. It was never inevitable. The lockdowns were never inevitable. That was a choice. And you look at countries like Sweden that didn't lock down because they have a constitution that meant that it wasn't allowed. God, I wish we had that. They had a 3.2% difference in mortality rates between Sweden and the UK, 3.2%. So for all of the lockdowns and all of the social and economic costs and all of the horrendous human costs that lockdowns had, 3.2% was the difference. And actually bringing this back to speech, I think that the fear, the government's fear of people and what they would do is really where this all stems from, where the desire to crack down on speech stems from. It is the unwillingness to hear from people that you disagree with. It is the unwillingness or indeed point blank refusal to believe that other opinions may be different to your own, but equally as legitimate. You know, I think lots of people are stupid. I think lots of opinions are really terrible. But my God, you've got to believe in the fundamental right for those people to freely express it. And I think there's also fear that their own opinions won't hold up. So like, I am very, very confident in my views on how things should be run. I'm very arrogant and I have lots of very high opinions about how the government can be smaller And I feel very confident in those views. I'm very happy to argue them and debate them with lots of people. But the kind of so called liberal consensus around big government and, you know, being a member of the European Union, you know, all of these sort of liberal consensus policy things in the UK have been challenged. And I think that there is a fear that those things are being challenged and can't be held up. And therefore we must suppress speech that is different to our own.
- [35:49]
Matt Kibbe
The real test of the censorship infrastructure, all these laws in the uk, in the EU and even in the US that infrastructure for censorship was there because they were already nervous about the fact that the crowd had opinions that might be quite critical of government officials. And it is very much related to speech because one of the ways that they sustained lockdowns and mask mandates and vaccine mandates and you're not allowed to work mandates and, and all this insanity is through stifling dissent. And Jay Bhattacharya, who now sits at the head of the nih, was one of the people famously and qualified to criticize lockdowns, and the government went after him. So I think ultimately it's a speech thing. It would be hard to do lockdowns if you had a robust crowd of people that were allowed to criticize that and some of them wanted to and were stifled. Unbeknownst to them at the time, you're shadow banned. So you don't even know the algorithms have completely. You don't know what's going on. But it's not like someone came and taped your mouth shut, but it was effectively the same thing.
- [37:10]
Reem Ibrahim
It's also, this is like public health misinformation. I think that this is something that a lot of western governments tend to implement, which is, you know, we need to crack down on misinformation, which is effectively just opinions that are different to their own. And there is received wisdom. And I think you're right, lockdowns are a brilliant example of this. But this is applicable, by the way, to almost every aspect of policy making that is supposed to help the public. Right? Basically every policy where the government say, we want to do this thing, we want to implement mask mandates, we want to implement really, really strict lockdowns. We want to do this thing because this is how we're reacting to this problem. So let's find the evidence that supports my solution. It's finding the solution. It's finding the solution, the policy, and then finding the evidence to support it. And the government will then pick scientists and medical professionals that support their Already pre existing opinion on policy. Policy was decided before the evidence was found because take mask mandates or just using masks full stop. There was evidence that masks helped stop the spread of COVID There was also evidence that said that masks did absolutely nothing. And to be honest, I'm not quite sure, which I believe. But that's the point. The evidence was so shaky, but the government wanted to implement this because this is a clear response. I am the government and I am responding to this problem. And so I'm gonna pick the scientist that tells me I'm right. And this happens in every aspect of policymaking. I mentioned the government's generational tobacco ban, which I think is a really fascinating example because what the government have said is smoking is bad. Yeah, smoking is really bad for you don't smoke. But the government have then said, okay, what we're going to do is we're going to implement a generational tobacco ban. So anybody born after 2009 was never be able to legally buy tobacco. So what you have is every single year the legal age at which you can buy tobacco will incrementally increase. So we'll be in a situation where a 35 year old will be allowed to buy tobacco, but a 34 year old won't be allowed to buy tobacco. This is how insane this is, right? It's completely arbitrary. And Rishi Sunak, after being conservative prime minister, after being asked what are you most proud of? He said, oh, I'm, I banned tobacco. I'm very proud of my banning of tobacco. It was a legacy for him. He wanted, it was legacy shopping because he knew that the government were going to lose the election. And so what you have is this policy where you've got organizations like Action on Smoking and Health who are actually taxpayer funded. So the government will use taxpayer money to fund lobby groups to lobby themselves, which is insane. And they then champion these kind of policies. Even though a lot of the evidence is, suggests that this is just going to push all of the legal tobacco sales into the black market. So you've got a tobacco private sector, privately regulated, taxed private sector in tobacco and you're going to hand that all to criminal gangs. But they completely shut off from that. They say, no, no, it's going to be amazing. Look how amazing I am. And this is, this is politics. This is, this is basically politics in a nutshell. It is politicians wanting to be seen to be doing good things and therefore finding the evidence to support their absolutely ridiculous policies, often violating our freedoms, by.
- [40:28]
Matt Kibbe
The way, policing behaviors and determining whether or not that's an acceptable behavior. Are you a good citizen? Are you a bad citizen? You could start with smoking, which I'm sure is less controversial for people that.
- [40:41]
Reem Ibrahim
Know people love it.
- [40:43]
Matt Kibbe
People know that smoking's bad. But the infrastructure, just like the censorship industrial complex, the infrastructure of policing good citizens versus bad citizens, well, that's the Chinese model.
- [40:56]
Reem Ibrahim
It is.
- [40:57]
Matt Kibbe
And it's creeping into all of our political systems.
- [41:01]
Reem Ibrahim
It's also really scary when some of the policy announcements came up, I mean, with health aspects of this. I mean, the government saying they want to reformulate food so that the amount of food that you eat, the amount of calories you, you eat. Restaurants are forced to publish how many calories are in each food. And I know that is the case in some states in the US too. It's all about trying to change our behaviour. There's now minimum alcohol pricing in Scotland. So alcohol has to be sold at a minimum price, which has no impact whatsoever on consumption rates. Because if you are a severe alcoholic, you're a severe alcoholic and you're just gonna buy the cheapest stuff, it has no impact whatsoever on consumption rates. But all of this comes under the fact that we have a socialist healthcare system. I mean, if I am paying for you and you are paying for me and I have, you know, how whether or not I look after my health has no bearing on my. How much I spend on my healthcare, well, then it's a complete free for all and it doesn't matter. You're not responsible for your own health care costs. The tax, the average taxpayer is, the government is. Therefore you have all of these socialist policies that come with it. If the government control your healthcare, they want to then control your health. Now the reason why I bring this up is I think when it comes to things like speech or even calorie counting or whether you're a good citizen or a bad citizen, the government are now looking at introducing digital id. So there is a way for all of this to be tracked. And up until the government made this announcement a couple of months ago, digital idea was actually quite popular. People liked the idea of being able to have your passport on your mobile phone and being able to just use it. It's convenient, it's great. And when the government announced it, we sort of call this dead cat theory in politics, just throwing out something into the midst because we're trying to distract from the absolute shit show that is going on otherwise. So what the government does is just throw that in there. Digital idea is one of them. So what the Government have said is that digital idea is going to completely be able to make things more convenient. We're going to end illegal migration because obviously illegal migrants, you know, they follow the law notoriously. So they are going to completely listen to this. So we already have right to work checks in the uk. If you're an employer and you want to employ somebody, you already have to check that they have the right to work. But the government want to make digital ID mandatory. Now, it sounds great, it sounds fine, whatever. You know, it's just making things more convenient. But what it does is it creates everything that you use. Every time you use that digital id, it will then ping a central government database, and that will create a map of who you are, where you've been, what you've been doing. And that is extraordinary data. I mean, that is data that the government has never been able to hold about an individual person before. So it will fundamentally change the relationship between the state and the individual. And look, maybe some people say, you know what, tech companies have my data. I don't mind the government having it. That's fine. But then let it be a choice. This is not being introduced as a choice. The government want it to be mandatory. And what's really scary about this is as we've been discussing the good, good citizen versus bad citizen thing, this can then be expanded through the use of digital id. You've had your limit of. Of calories today, sir. You're not allowed anymore. You've had your limit of alcohol today, sir. You're not allowed anymore. And that's pinged on. I mean, this is so draconian.
- [44:24]
Matt Kibbe
Carbon consumption.
- [44:25]
Reem Ibrahim
Carbon consumption. Your carbon footprint that day. Yeah, you've had your limit today, sir. I mean, this is where we're heading. And every time something like this has been implemented, there have been groups that have said, guys, this is absurd. This is absurd. This is the road we're heading. It's a slippery slope. And we just continue going further and further down that path. And the weird thing is, as I said, Brits don't have this aversion to government intervention in their lives. They actually quite enjoy the comfort, generally speaking, of government support and government control. And so digital ID was sort of quite popular before Karama announced that it was actual government policy. The real scary thing is, now I'm gonna sound properly tinfoil hat. Here is Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the uk, sort of has this organization named after him, the Tony Blair Institute. And they are the ones that have been really pushing for digital id. And there is Some question about whether or not the company that is going to be sort of foreseeing this digital ID is related to his family. I mean there's a lot of misinformation out there about whether or not this is actually true. But the fascinating thing is that the Tony Blair Institute have been lobbying for this to be implemented and they are very, very happy about it indeed.
- [45:39]
Matt Kibbe
He's kind of your Bill Gates World Economic Forum.
- [45:42]
Reem Ibrahim
Yeah, this is. Well, you know what it is. You can go down a road.
- [45:46]
Matt Kibbe
I have a tinfoil suit by the way.
- [45:47]
Reem Ibrahim
Okay, good. You're full blown tinfoil hat. That's great. That's great. I think I might need a suit too.
- [45:56]
Kibbe On Liberty Announcer
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- [46:20]
Matt Kibbe
Well, it's, I mean I think there's more public choice explanations for this sort of, you know, Bill Gates behavior. As evil as I think he has been on a lot that he's done. Like he thinks that humans are basically a computer program that he can just sort of tweak and get right, which is the original conception of socialism, not freedom. But he's just making himself richer.
- [46:49]
Reem Ibrahim
Yeah, and you're right, it's a public choice thing. It's basically as a politician, you, you have the exact same self interested behaviors as any other human being across the entire planet. Just because you enter the public policy sphere, just because you become a politician doesn't mean suddenly your incentives change. Right? You have the exact same incentives. And whether it be financial, reputational, whether it be power, whatever it is, those are your incentives. And so often politicians are asked, you know, what are you doing about this problem? Here's a problem, you're the government, you've got to fix it. And I just wish we had more of a culture of politicians that could say that's not the government's role. You know, here's a problem. If any politician goes on TV and is asked what are you doing about this problem? They have to have an answer. And the answer is usually we're going to ban this, we're going to stop this, we're going to restrict this, we're going to tax this, we're going to make everybody's lives more difficult. One example of this is zombie knives. Now I Don't know if you've seen the zombie knives. They're like the. Quite. Well, the actual legal definition of them is just basically knives with a serrated edge. So if they've got more than two serrated edge edges, and that is a zombie knife. And there have been.
- [48:00]
Matt Kibbe
I haven't heard this phrase.
- [48:01]
Reem Ibrahim
You haven't heard this phrase before? Okay, cool. The reason why I think it's relevant is because obviously around the, the right to bear arms in the US is such a huge thing, which we just do not have in the uk. I mean, pepper spray, spray is illegal in the uk. Like this is. Pepper spray counts as an assault weapon.
- [48:16]
Matt Kibbe
Steak knife.
- [48:18]
Reem Ibrahim
I, I think it's illegal to also carry a knife from public. So I mean there is literally I, as a young woman living in London, I have no way of defending myself. Literally none. I'm supposed to rely on the police to be able to do that for me. And my God, I don't trust them to do that. The zombie knives were banned under this whole moral panic around, you know, oh my God, there are people out there that are going to go and get these knives, order them on Amazon and they're going to kill people. And so zombie knives have been banned. There have been restrictions on the sale of those knives. So you have to prove that you're over 18 to do so, which obviously makes things a lot more difficult for those people. What's interesting is there was a guy that was, he had his house searched for this self created zombie knife. He just cut into this knife, a serrated edge and he was using it for foraging and for, for like bush hunting and things like that he was using. He's an outdoorsy guy. I won't pretend I'm from London. I won't pretend to know what it was used for, but it was used for outdoorsy things. And he had to pay huge amounts of money to the government as a fine and also give up this knife. And what's absurd about this is there is no evidence that banning or restricting the type of knife is going to stop people from killing people. If somebody's going to kill somebody, they're going to do it right? This cup could be a weapon. Are we gonna ban cups? Are we gonna ban, you know, completely bind all of our hands because we're so afraid of people killing other, other people. It happens, right? Bad people are bad people and they don't care about the law. If a bad person wants to get their hands on a zombie knife, they will. But the funny thing is there was no, there was no argument against this. Nobody was making the argument that this is like a really dumb policy that is not gonna do anything. It was literally just supported by absolutely everybody. And that's why, I mean, the UK will never legalise guns because we're just. We don't even have pepper spray. Like, this is so far beyond it. And we are banning different types of knives because we're afraid of the damage that people can do with them.
- [50:17]
Matt Kibbe
I've met some of your colleagues who think that we Americans are a little bit mad about our guns. But I will say that I feel a lot safer in Texas than I do in New York City.
- [50:29]
Reem Ibrahim
Oh, completely. Because you're able to defend yourself. I was on a podcast and I made this argument to the girls that were hosting it and I said, you know, it's feminist to be pro gun because it means that I, as a woman, can have equal power to men. I can. If a man enters my home in London, I have no way of defending myself. Literally none. If I had a gun, at least that equalizes the power and I'm much more likely to be able to defend myself. It's very scary because the culture is different right there. Isn't that culture of self defense, of protection? And I think the zombie knife debacle, I think, is such a fascinating example of that, where the moral panic is so strong. And, you know, you see these images on the BBC of these horribly big long knives that are like neon green and have like bad words on them or whatever, and you've got the mums on mumsnet, which is like a mum's website, where they all complain about things and that basically drives public policy these days. Oh, my God, look at these horrible knives. My children aren't safe if these knives exist. Blah, blah, blah. Really sad. And then the government just go and ban them and it has no impact whatsoever because if you're a murderer, you're a murderer. You're gonna find something to murder people with. It has no impact whatsoever.
- [51:39]
Matt Kibbe
You might break laws too.
- [51:40]
Reem Ibrahim
And yeah, if you're. It's funny, actually. Criminals break the law. It's mad.
- [51:48]
Matt Kibbe
If we would just plan a little bit more, take a little bit more freedom away from everybody else, it'd be fine.
- [51:54]
Reem Ibrahim
We'd all be safe.
- [51:56]
Matt Kibbe
So was George Orwell a thing?
- [52:01]
Reem Ibrahim
Great question.
- [52:02]
Matt Kibbe
Has he been cancelled?
- [52:04]
Reem Ibrahim
I think people forget what George Orwell stood for. It's so funny. 1984, I think, is one of the most brilliant books I've ever read. Read. And I think, because it's so accessible, that fundamental understanding. But also, actually, Animal Farm, I think, is a really great book as well, because it's the understanding that the politicians, you know, we're all as equal as each other, except for the fact that some people are more equal than others. And it's the idea that equality is the virtue that must be pursued over freedom. And that obviously is very, very applicable when it comes to the restrictions of. On free speech, when it comes to bans and the government telling people what they can and cannot do. I think lockdowns were extremely Orwellian. But the thing is, there aren't people that are pro liberty arguing for this stuff. Like, even. Even people that call themselves libertarians were quite supportive of lockdowns and quite supportive of some government restrictions. I mean, we're in a really, really scary position because I think that the UK doesn't have a liberty movement, so to speak.
- [53:08]
Matt Kibbe
Yeah. And again, not to harsh your buzz, but the same dynamic is happening here, particularly after lockdowns. You know, the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, you know, right now, President Trump spends way too much of his time trying to take out Thomas Massie instead of going after the squishes in his own party that are undermining his agenda. So I can't fully explain that. But, yeah, liberty is, at least in the halls of power, is on the run.
- [53:42]
Reem Ibrahim
But in the United States, you have a liberty movement. Outside of the halls of power, you've got organisations like Free the People, you've got fantastic organizations across dc, across the world. So across the country, at the state level, the national level, you've got organizations that are genuinely principled and fighting for liberty. I can't say we have that in the uk. We don't have that privilege. We don't have. We don't have 100 organizations fighting for liberty. They don't exist. Yeah, they also. And the ones that do exist have no money. So it's. It's a pretty.
- [54:12]
Matt Kibbe
And of course, iea, which the Institute for Economic affairs in London, tell the story about the creation of the IEA. And you guys are like the OG.
- [54:27]
Reem Ibrahim
We are the OGs. This is my favorite story to tell, so thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell it. So let's bring us back to 1945. We are just at the midst of the Second World War, back when George.
- [54:39]
Matt Kibbe
Orwell was still in fashion, back when.
- [54:41]
Reem Ibrahim
George Orwell was indeed still in fashion. And there were two brothers, a guy called Basil Fisherman, Anthony Fisher. Anthony was the older brother and they were both Battle of Britain Pilots. And Basil Fisher was this gorgeous, young, dashing, good looking guy. He was actually my age now, 23. And Anthony Fisher, the older brother, watched his younger brother Basil die in front of him in the Bastard of Britain. And it was a really, really horrible situation for Anthony as the older brother. He loved his brother very, very much. And it was a huge, huge situation for him in that, in that particular moment. So he comes back to London after the war and he's grieving and he's very upset about seeing, watching his brother die. But his brother died to protect Britain from the threat of Nazi Germany, from the threat of authoritarianism. So there is at least that sense of comfort. And Anthony went on to. He had his job in the City and he ended up becoming a chicken farmer. So he bought a farm in Sussex and he realized that the government had increasingly taken over control. The Eggs Marketing Board decided the price at which he was allowed to sell his eggs at it was a whole situation. He ended up going to America and learning about battery chicken farming and bringing over eggs, because, again, it was illegal to import them wrapped as Easter eggs and it smuggled them into the uk, which is, I think, just brilliant. So Anthony Fisher is really, really getting quite angry at the government for telling him exactly how he can and cannot run his own farm, his own business, and he ends up stumbling across the Road to Serfdom, or indeed the Reader's Digest version of the Road to serfdom by F.A. hayek. And he reads it and he is absolutely electrified. He suddenly realizes that there are other people that think the way that he does. So he goes over to the London School of Economics where I actually studied, and he finds Hayek, who was a lecturer at the LSE at the time. And he says to Hayek, I believe everything you wrote. I am, I think I'm going to go become a politician and I'm going to implement everything you said. And then Hayek said, well, slow down, bro, don't do that. You are going to be bound by political incentives. As soon as you become a politician, you're going to be required to compromise on those ideas. What you need to do is go and win the battle of ideas. And so he founded the Institute of economic affairs in 1955, which I now have the privilege of working for. And one of the OG think tanks, think tanks weren't really a thing in the 50s. It was a sort of pamphlet publishing organization. So Anthony Fisher remained sort of in the organisation as a whole and sort of drove it forward. But there were a couple of other Key figures that made the IEA what it is today. And at some point along the story, Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher walked through the doors and learned about the importance of free markets and, you know, unleashing the prosperity that is able to be there and spontaneous order and learnt so much about that. And that's how we got the 1980s. So there was actually, there was an Oliver Letwin quote, I think it was, you know, without the iea. So without this chicken farmer, Anthony Fisher, there would be no iea. Without the iea, there would be no Thatcher, no Reagan and perhaps not the collapse of the Soviet Union. So quite the feat for a lowly.
- [58:05]
Matt Kibbe
Chicken farmer and an upbeat way to talk about the future. Because it's not necessarily in politics, it's going to be in culture and politics is always downstream of culture. So the next generation of liberty lovers come to be. To be determined.
- [58:24]
Reem Ibrahim
I think so. I think it will be determined in that way because people are starting to wake up to the fact that the government's intervention in our lives isn't the be all and end all. And actually perhaps people can make those decisions for themselves. I also think that the sort of authoritarian left tend to have a monopoly over compassion. And I think that libertarians are getting better, better at telling human stories. I mean, I tried to do it today talking about Lucy Connolly and her. The impact that it's had on her life. That is the impact that the government has had in her life. Let's talk about liberty from a human perspective, because the authoritarian left are brilliant at doing it. We've destroyed them with facts and logic. Let's talk about humanity and compassion because the left have this monopoly over compassion. And I say freedom is compassionate. Liberty is the most compassionate value because it means that people can pursue that flourishing for themselves. They can pursue their lives, they can pursue their own values, they can pursue exactly what it is that they want to do with their own lives without some stupid government bureaucrat telling them they can't. And I think to end on an optimistic note, I suppose I actually think that there is. The future of this actually happening is quite positive. There are people that are feeling the real human impact of economic flourishing. And I think that AI and technology and the future of prosperity really hinges on this note because liberty is compassionate.
- [59:51]
Matt Kibbe
Nice. Closer there. So how do people find you and the IEA?
- [59:56]
Reem Ibrahim
Yes. So you can learn all about the IEA's work@insider.iea.org.uk. you can find me on X. I'm basically Reem Amir Ibrahim R E E M A M I R I B R A H I m on like all platforms. On TikTok, I'm Reem Ibrahimx. But Instagram LinkedIn.
- [60:16]
Matt Kibbe
You haven't been banned from TikTok yet.
- [60:17]
Reem Ibrahim
I've not been banned from TikTok yet, thankfully. Maybe Shadow banned, but not banned banned. So I'm still there.
- [60:23]
Matt Kibbe
All right. Thank you. Thank you for doing this.
- [60:25]
Reem Ibrahim
Thank you.
- [60:27]
Kibbe On Liberty Announcer
Thanks for watching. If you liked the conversation, make sure to like video subscribe and also ring the bell for notifications. And if you want to know more about free the people, go to freethepeople.org.