Judge David Khan has ruled that criticism of Islam is a legally protected belief under the 2010 Equality Act.
In 2021, Mr Justice Choudhury ruled in the Maya Forstater case that gender-critical beliefs are worthy of respect in a democratic society.
As long ago as 2012, Mr Justice Briggs made a similar ruling in the High Court. He found that a belief that marriage is valid only between a man and a woman was also worthy of respect in a democratic society.
That 2012 case involved Trafford Housing Society, which had demoted an employee and cut his pay by 40 per cent because he had written on his private Facebook page that he thought gay marriage would cause problems for the Church.
You would have thought therefore that there had been enough rulings over enough years for people to have realised that it is a fundamental democratic right to hold views which others might question and to express them freely as long as there is no intent to stir up violence but, no, employers still sack and professional bodies still ban on the basis of a requirement for uniformity of belief.
It is not a piece of exaggerated rhetoric when people make comparisons with the old Soviet Union or the Stasi or the Nazis.
We don’t throw people into some latter-day Lubyanka for holding views contrary to state orthodoxy, but they can lose their livelihoods, find themselves on a register of “non-crime hate incidents”, be cancelled by the media or pilloried via social media.
The latest court ruling on Islam is a nightmare disguised as a cause for celebration - Ann Widdecombe
|Getty Images
Worse, their children can be punished for voicing their parents’ thoughts at school. For that matter, a child can be reprimanded for disputing that one of her fellow pupils can be a cat.
The control of thought is the hallmark of totalitarianism.
We may well rejoice at Judge Khan’s ruling, but why on earth in a democratic country was it ever necessary?
Depressingly, it will not be the last such ruling, and it will go on being necessary for citizens to have to resort to law to enjoy the right to give voice to their own consciences and views.
Nobody complains if somebody attacks Christianity, so why should anyone face, at best, censure and at worst professional ruin for criticising Islam? Particularly when the critic made it clear that he was criticising fundamentalist Islam, not the more modern, Westernised version.
That is why Reform is right to put liberty of speech at the top of its agenda, but so deep now is the culture of offence and the acceptance that only certain views are to be allowed promulgation, that it will almost certainly require legislation to make Britain return to being the free country it once was.
At present, even the words “I want my country back” are portrayed as sinister and racist, quite regardless of the context in which they are uttered, which may have nothing whatever to do with immigration or diversity.
How long will it be before someone ends up suing in an employment tribunal because he or she has been disciplined for uttering them in the workplace?