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Comment by hayd | Hacker News Reader

It isn't that just anyone can demand a platform. This is usually if a debate club/similar invites someone to speak, and then some other body/higher authority steps in who disapproves of the speaker.

Ten+ years ago this happened with Nick Griffin at Durham Union Society. NUS bused in people from other universities to protest/stop the debate, successfully. A few weeks later he appeared on BBC Question Time and was utterly demolished, leading to the BNP being utterly wiped out in the election shortly afterwards.

Sunlight is the best medicine.

(See also Ye on Timcast yesterday.)

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> This is usually if a debate club/similar invites someone to speak, and then some other body/higher authority steps in who disapproves of the speaker.

And that's totally fair and part of the game we call "democracy".

> A few weeks later he appeared on BBC Question Time and was utterly demolished, leading to the BNP being utterly wiped out in the election shortly afterwards.

It is totally irrelevant, but his party was phagocytised by the UKIP, which made his ideas mainstream. These ideas later infected the Conservative Party and finally they've made it to the very recent Starmer speech to the CBI conference.

Griffin's insanity is ruling the UK.

Obsessed and delusional

How well did sunlight work during Brexit?

Very well; the UK cabinet is now accountable for its policy choices like never before. (Of course the short-term result of that is that they're visibly a shambles, but that's the initial effect of any improvement in transparency).

This has to be a culture difference because that kind of thing would never happen in the US which is why I think people over here have become disillusioned that sunlight works. In fact Cheeto in Chief seemed to have actually proven the opposite, sunlight only served to make the insane people realize they weren't alone and embolden politicians to campaign on that nonsense because it fires up the nutjobs and moderates are stuck voting for them anyway. It's become a game of saying the most unhinged vile shit to keep your name in the news cycle. It genuinely doesn't seem a lot of them even buy into it based on what they do once elected.

Like it's the funniest thing to watch.

campaign: "I'm gonna launch myself into orbit and destroy the Jewish space lazers with my freedom fists"

elected: "Yeah I think we should increase the budget allocation to the department of transportation next fiscal year in anticipation of the harsh winter we're about to have."

It didn't happen here, either in my view. Yes, Griffin got rinsed - but the reason his vote collapsed was not that a small number of people watching Question Time suddenly realised that he wasn't any good. Rather, the rise of UKIP took away the non-fascist right wing protest vote part of his coalition, which was always a lot bigger than the National Front-esque true believers.

We're not even on our first go around this University "free speech" game. A previous Conservative government put anti-no-platform clauses into the Education (No. 2) Act 1986[0] during the previous 'politically correct' moral panic. The practical effect is to require universities themselves to make sure that there are facilities for speakers etc. that their students union refuses to host for political or moral reasons. These duties are still in force.

[0]: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/61/section/43

> that their students union refuses to host for political or moral reasons

Weird, I figured it would be the opposite. I get if students wanted to host someone then the University can't tell them no, but when would the opposite happen. What University is that bad at reading the room? Who are they expecting the audience to be?

The usual scenario is that a bunch of students decide that they want to be principled and/or edgy and invite someone unpopular and/or unpleasant to speak. The SU says 'no, we don't let our space be used for meetings with Nazis/homophobes/Erdogan enthusiasts/whoever', and now the university (imagined by the law as a kind of parent body of the SU) has some legal duties.

I think part of the 'menace' fought by the Act when introduced was the anti-apartheid boycott of South Africa. Many SUs wouldn't platform pro-apartheid speakers, while student Conservative Party clubs generally took the British government line against the ANC and in favour of the SA government.

In the case I mentioned it wasn't the SU's space, it was the debate club's. It wasn't Durham's SU that has the problem, it was the national SU, and they bused in protestors.

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