Free Speech Union Sets Up New Writers’ Advisory Council

The Free Speech Union has set up a new Writers’ Advisory Council and has created an offer for beleaguered authors concerned that their speech rights aren’t being adequately defended. Craig Simpson in the Sunday Telegraph has more.

Writers critical of the Society of Authors after the union was engulfed in a trans row are defecting to a group which has pledged to defend their freedom of speech.

The UK’s largest writers’ union has faced an internal revolt over claims it has not properly defended gender-critical authors from being “cancelled” for not agreeing with prevailing opinions, or supporting figures like JK Rowling who have been accused of “transphobia”.

Authors critical of gender ideology who felt exiled from the organisation, which was feared to be “lost to cancel culture”, have now been offered protection at a rival union which has promised to “come to defence of beleaguered authors”.

The Free Speech Union has established a new provision specifically for authors, particularly those under pressure for rejecting the belief that self-identified gender takes precedence over biological sex, and writers are already understood to be defecting from the Society of Authors to the rival union.

The Free Speech Union, founded by Toby Young, announced: “It has become increasingly clear to us that freedom of expression is under severe pressure within the literary world, with publishers and literary agents often failing to defend their authors when their speech rights come under attack.”

“The freedom of authors to express themselves and of people to read their work without interference or mediation by self-appointed censors is a fundamental human right.”

Worth reading in full.

You can read more about this new FSU offer on the home page of its website. The new Writers’ Advisory Council includes the authors Julie Bindel, Alex Marwood, Helen Joyce, Mary Harrington, Bel Mooney, Anna Pasternack, Gillian Philips, Nina Power, Rachel Rooney, Lionel Shriver, Andrew Roberts and Gareth Roberts, literary agents Matthew Hamilton and Caroline Hardman and publisher George Owers.