I’ve been a pub landlord for 20 years, served hundreds of thousands of pints, keeping my family’s tradition alive, and I’m absolutely fuming at Labour’s latest outrage, this so-called “banter ban” buried in their Employment Rights Bill.
Clause 20, set to gut us by 2026, is a vicious blow to the soul of British pubs, no two ways about it. It’s turning me into some sort of woke copper, patrolling every joke or loudmouth comment that might “offend” my staff.
Let’s be clear, in two decades behind the bar, not once has a member of my staff complained about a punter’s banter. Not once. But Labour are hellbent on turning pubs into sterile, joyless bubbles.
It’s pure, unfiltered madness.
Toby Young from the Free Speech Union nailed it, just 0.5 per cent of workers reported non-sexual third-party harassment last year. That’s half a per cent!
According to the Office for Equality and Opportunity, only 9.2 per cent of the 5.5 per cent who faced any workplace harassment blamed third parties.
Do the maths, we’re talking about 0.51 per cent of claims. For this, Labour are tearing apart our way of life, over a problem that barely exists. That’s not policy, it’s lunacy.
My pub is a bastion of free speech. It'll be a library if Keir Starmer's wicked bill becomes law - Adam Brooks
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Pubs are where people go to speak their minds, share a laugh and have a row over politics, not sit in some sanctimonious lecture hall.
My regulars, most of them proper working class, live for a bit of banter or a cheeky gag. And my staff? Hard as nails. They deal with rowdy types every day and do it with a smirk. They took the job knowing a pub’s not a nunnery.
Never once have they cried “harassment” over a silly joke, a rant about immigration, or someone mouthing off about the latest trans agenda nonsense, yet this bill wants me to spy on every table, ready to turf out anyone who might “offend” under the vague waffle of the Equality Act.
A punter shouting “Are you blind, ref?!” at the telly during the match could land me in a tribunal. Is this some kind of sick joke?
Even the Equality and Human Rights Commission says this will “curtail” free speech, and they’re dead right.
Pubs, restaurants and football grounds, all becoming miserable, lifeless zones where everyone’s too scared to speak.
Kate Nicholls from UKHospitality summed it up perfectly: “Pubs are for boisterous banter, not the thought police.”
And let’s not forget the backlog, 50,000 tribunal cases already clogging up the system. Small pubs like mine can’t afford lawyers to fight this garbage. We’re already on life support, with 37 pubs closing every single week, and now Labour’s coming with the pillow.
This isn’t about protection, it’s about control, full stop. Labour’s handing power to the woke zealots to silence anyone with a different opinion, whether it’s about gender, politics, or just a bit of cheek.
My pub is a bastion of free speech, and I’ll be damned if Keir Starmer’s dreary mob turns it into a bloody library.
Enough’s enough. Labour needs to sod off before they kill off every last pub in Britain.
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