Credit;PA
Dominic Raab has said his plans to scrap Labour’s Human Rights Act will guarantee the principle of free speech becomes a legal “trump card”.
The justice secretary said his proposals will protect free speech from being “whittled away” by “wokery and political correctness”.
The government plans to replace the landmark Human Rights Act with a new UK Bill of Rights, with Raab claiming free speech had to be given “different status in the pecking order of rights”.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, the deputy prime minister said: “Effectively, free speech will be given what will amount to ‘trump card’ status in a whole range of areas.
“The thrust is going to be making sure that when we balance rights, whether it’s the right to free speech and the right to privacy or other rights, we make sure that the greatest overriding importance and weight is attached to free speech.”
He added: “But we’ve got to be able to strengthen free speech, the liberty that guards all of our other freedoms, and stop it being whittled away surreptitiously, sometimes without us really being conscious of it.
“I feel very strongly that the parameters of free speech and democratic debate are being whittled away, whether by the privacy issue or whether it’s wokery and political correctness.”
Raab continued: “So it will have a different status in the pecking order of rights and I think that will go a long way to protecting this country’s freedom of speech and our history, which has always very strongly protected freedom of speech.”
His intervention sparked a furious reaction on Twitter, with commentators lining up to criticise the justice secretary. Here are some of the most irate reactions.
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