'Labour want to GAG you!' | Andy Burnham to CENSOR social media posts and SILENCE election debate?!

Labour wants to gag you on social media, particularly during elections. This is the second attack this week from the Labour Party on your right to free speech and freedom of expression. Lucy Powell, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, do you remember her? If anyone saw the documentary on Channel 4 about rape gangs... No, we want to blow that little trumpet now, do we? No, there is a real issue... Let's get that dog whistle out, shall we? Yeah, that's a reminder there. She's also called Elon Musk's platform ex-toxic and is now calling for all of you at home to have to have the same censorship as broadcast TV during election periods. Absolutely need to strengthen regulation in the social media space. You know, as a broadcaster, Lewis, how much you are restricted and regulated during election periods. I think it's not beyond the wit of man. We've got an elections bill going through the House of Commons at the moment to strengthen that bill so that social media comes under some of the same requirements during an election period as our broadcasters do. Yeah, we call that rule perda. You've probably heard it before. It means during elections, we have very strict rules about discussing and reporting on them. And it seems like Lucy Power and the Labour Party want Ofcom to police all of your speech online. Well, this fresh attack comes a week after the government launched its consultation on whether it should be allowed to manipulate social media algorithms to force feed you BBC and establishment media news without your consent. But why do all of this? Well, it's no secret, is it, that Labour and its politicians by default are deeply, deeply unpopular in this country. They're regularly humiliated for their poor judgment on social media. Frankly, they must be totally infuriated by it. So is it any wonder? Oh, is it any wonder why? They just don't want to hear what you have to say. They'd rather hide behind their establishment and bias social media platforms where they can silence you very easily. Many Labour politicians, of course, already locked down their comments on ex-Sadiq Khan. The Mayor of London is a prime example of that. Khan and multiple others really don't seem to like hearing from you, the great British public, despite constantly telling you that your voice matters. Let's also take Lisa Nandy, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sports. Yes, she's quit X and forced her whole department off the platform too. Lisa, you're the Secretary of State for Media. I mean, it's ridiculous. How long do you all at home think it is until they try and ban X all together? Free speech is under attack in this country. We arrest thousands of people a year for hurty word crimes and now it seems they want to completely silence you during elections too, perhaps because they have a track record in government that literally nobody would be proud of. Are you planning a trip this year? Well, staying connected when traveling abroad is the one thing everyone worries about. And that's where Saili comes in, the sponsor of this video. Saili is an app that gives you instant mobile data in 200 destinations without ridiculous roaming charges. There's no physical SIM cards, no airport queues and no dodgy vending machines. Here's how it works. Download the Saili app, pick your country, choose your data plan and install the eSIM once. Then when you land, it activates instantly. You're online straight away. Maps are working, Uber's booked and your photos are uploading. And the best part, you only install the eSIM once. On your next trip, just buy a new plan and switch it back on. Some have even found it's faster than hotel Wi-Fi. Plus, there's ad blocking, 24-7 support and a full refund if your phone isn't compatible. Before your next trip, download Saili using our link below, use code NEWS for 15% off and get sorted before you travel. Go to saili.com forward slash news or scan the QR code now. And thank you to Saili for supporting the channel. Should we get the thoughts of my panel? I've got a journalist and broadcasting legend, Carol Malone, former cabinet minister and Reform UK member, Sir Jake Berry, and journalist and broadcaster, Benjamin Butterworth. Good evening. Hello. Carol. We'll be up for a sainthood by the end of this show. Yeah, well, I should say the right honourable, shouldn't I? Right honourable Sir Jake Berry. But Carol, I'll start with you. The second attack in a week, basically. Second attack on free speech in a week. Why do Labour really, really hate social media so much? Because they're always getting slated on it, because of the party that is slated on social media more than anything. That does not stop them, of course, promoting their own agendas on social media and their own achievements. And this is the party that, when it was trying to save Keir Starmer's backside, was briefing for him all the time, lying and saying what a fantastic prime minister he is. So they use social media to their own advantage. You know, yes, X can be a cesspit and very often is. But, you know, we wouldn't know half of what we know about this shoddy government if it was not for social media. But, you know, the UK is sounding more and more like a communist state every single day. You know, look at the things that they're trying to do in this country. They're trying to cancel local elections for two years because we're doing so badly in the polls and on social media. They're trying to skip jury trials. They're telling us what cars we have to drive. They're telling us what boilers we have to have, what kind of towers we have to have. I mean, who are they to be dictating to us in this way? And now free speech is under attack. You know, Burnham has already said he's already expressed support for a Leveson 2. We saw how cosy he was with Hugh Grant the other day, who would be very up for a Leveson 2. So he wants to gag the press. He will never, and neither will she, be able to gag social media. How are they going to police that? So every time somebody writes a tweet that they deem or Ofcom deems to be against the law, they're going to be prosecuting people every 30 seconds of every day. It's never going to work. Benjamin, are they trying to silence people online? Is that what's happening here? They're just embarrassed of their track record and therefore don't like the communication they're receiving from the great British public. So they think, just ban them all. No, that's complete nonsense. Look, websites like Twitter or X are absolutely toxic and a cesspit. Even Nigel Farage, a couple of months ago, made a comment that he was shocked by the amount of racist abuse that he sees on X. It is not reflective of the country, and it is not a town square. It is the country, though you're entirely wrong. It is not at all. The sheer number of accounts that are likely not run by real people, they are bots from other countries, quite possibly, is so blatant because the amount of explicit racist abuse, nasty content, complete lies and disinformation is dangerous to free speech and a democracy. The fact that you can spread complete lies and they can reach millions of people should not be tolerated. That undermines a democratic society, not enhances it. And to put it in the context of newspapers, newspapers would never have got away with 101 things that you can read on social media. So why shouldn't we have the same rules and guardrails as newspapers has long had for social media? Because it's citizen journalism, isn't it? I mean, to say that an individual who tweets during a by-election vote for this candidate or that should be subject to the same rules as GB News or The Telegraph. These are large corporations. Of course, they should have guardrails. But this is going to the individual level of a little, you know, little old lady or a little old man sat at home, puts their opinion on when they come home from the pub, they're going to be banned. And of course, this wouldn't be so sinister unless you looked at it with the other things the government is doing as well. So for example, they're proposing that all new electronic devices, smartphones that you might have in this country, have a filter on where the government can monitor every single one of your posts that you put out there. I think they call it user end coordination. Also, it sounds innocuous, but effectively, that enables them to block things in your phone before you've even tweeted them. I think this is completely sinister. And when combined with the rules that came out today on political party funding, which basically were targeted to challenge reform and stop them getting donations, this is a cynical government trying to stack political funding in their favour, try to track your smartphone, try to stop you tweeting your opinion during election period. It's like North Korea. Well, on top of that, we heard not full confirmation, but a bit of rumour mill that Andy Burnham would also perhaps pursue blocking VPNs, virtual private networks, which allow you to change your location to another country. It's also very good if you want to protect your identity from hackers and things like that. It's a very useful tool for journalists going abroad, doing their work. Andy Burnham may want to also continue with that policy. All these things are basically, in my opinion, exceptionally Orwellian. It is essentially an attack on your right of free speech. It's an attack on your right to control your day-to-day life, of which we do a lot on our mobile phones now, and for the government to have its hand and its new police, the Ofcom police, everywhere policing everything you say and do. They basically want to censor differing opinions. You know, there's a story that came out of Manchester over the weekend that Manchester firemen who support reform have been warned that they shouldn't be supporting reform because reform thinks they might get in in Manchester and take over the mayorship. So how can you have Labour people telling firemen and threatening them and saying they shouldn't be voicing support or voting for reform? But that's outrageous. That's controlling how people vote. Same way with local elections, trying to cancel them because they knew they wouldn't win in certain areas. You can't... That is not democracy. That is the opposite of democracy. It's verging on fascism. You can't... You know, people like Stalin, Hitler, Putin does all of that. They tell you... Stalin, Hitler, Burnham. What are you on about? I said Putin, not Burnham. No, but that's the line you're going down. You're saying that they were controlled in Manchester. I mean, it's ridiculous to compare... Well, they are being controlled in Manchester. So why is it ridiculous? You haven't made clear who was apparently telling these firefighters not to show support for a political party. What does Labour people mean? I mean, it could be anybody. Are they an authority? People who are fighting for the seat in Manchester. Well, that's fine. That's their opinion against someone else's opinion. It's not the state telling them. I'll put this to you, Benjamin, though. Banning VPNs and some of the countries that have done that, Russia, Iran... China, North Korea. North Korea, Saudi Arabia. Broke my phone when I was there. Right, there you go. That is Orwellian. That is authoritarian. Cancelling elections. I mean, Benjamin, I know, had this been the Tory party doing it, if Nigel Farage started doing it, the left-wing media would have gone, this guy is acting like a dictator, wouldn't he? Let's be honest. No, because dystopia is creating platforms where you can put a lie and the algorithm... People lie in real life, Benjamin. We can't stop them from doing that. And people are free to challenge it. I can lie to a group of people in front of me, but it's a lot more dangerous for someone to tell that lie and it get millions of views and be taken belittled. But it does. You have an algorithm that says that controversial, outrageous, unacceptable, nasty, racist opinions will get far more replies and then they are put to the top. That is dystopia. That is destroying our social cohesion. And you have to have guardrails. Actually, freedom and freedom of speech is the freedom to say what you believe, not what the government believes or the government tells you you can believe. Now, we do have laws saying you can't incite racism, you can't incite violence. I agree with all of those laws. But freedom isn't the government telling me what I have the... And actually, the worst thing about this is the idea that it's going to be governed by Ofcom. It is a completely dysfunctional organisation. Ofcom launched an investigation into me. The only way I found out about it, bizarrely, is that Ofcom tweeted about it. And two years went by and I never heard anything again until they put another tweet out saying they suspended the investigation. This organisation is in chaos. The idea that they can look after the internet... It's equivalent to doing this. And Benjamin, I understand from a left-wing perspective... It's not left-wing. Well, it is left-wing. It is left-wing. You shouldn't be able to promote lies. That's how they're trying to do it. From the perspective you think it is, I can understand why you may not like those things. However, people are racist every single day. People say nasty things every single day. We don't have the police out on their shoulder monitoring that all the time. What we allow is sensible people to go, that is inappropriate. I don't agree with that. And what society does is reject those people. The wisdom of the crowd. First of all, that's not true. If you said something racist to a person in public, then you could end up with the police coming after you. You're right. You're so stupid to object to that. It's a crime. But secondly... Although it's the same rule, but what we're doing here is creating another set of rules for policing speech. Particularly, we already see lots of people arrested for hurty word crimes where the police should be taking down criminals. What do you mean it's nonsense? It's not nonsense. We see it every day. This idea that things that would be criminal in person should be legal online is a dangerous road to go down. They are criminal online as well. No, they're not. Law is the law then. To say it's the greatest crime ever that people lie. Guess what? Politicians lie. All the time. Keir Starmer told us that we're going to get £300 off our energy bill. It's gone up. He told us he was going to smash the gangs. He told us he wouldn't increase taxes. He has. Politicians lie. Maybe Keir Starmer and all politicians should be locked up because politicians lie. Removing the ability to tell the difference between truth and lies, which is the design of platforms like X, is incredibly dystopian, incredibly dangerous, and not something we've had before. If Labour would be quite so intent on doing this, if social media treated them well, if social media said, what a fabulous government this is, what a fabulous, what a great job you're doing. That is a lie. That should be banned. And you know, the idea that this is going to be imposed on us by a bunch of liars and cheats and hypocrites is the greatest irony of all. No one lies more than this government. No one cheats more than this government. The interesting thing about having Ofcom police election periods is that I don't, I mean, most of you at home, I see this all the time on your say, we're in purdah and you'll go, why are you talking about this election story? There's a local story that's happened. Perhaps it's a crime in a constituency that's got an election going on. We cannot touch that story, right? Because it might imply something to do with the local election there. Therefore, we have all these laws and rules that we have to read out the people standing in that election, anything that's happened, any mitigating factors to expect the British public to do all of those things when they're tweeting this. For the birds. Apart from anything else, they couldn't do it. I mean, I don't know whether people watching understand what purdah is, but it's a situation whereby broadcast media and newspapers are governed by a set of rules that they can't be seen to be in favour of certain people in certain elections. And that is really hard to police. We all stick to the rules because we know there are great penalties, but it's really hard to police. The idea that you could police 70 million people in this country from tweeting whatever, it's a joke, it can never happen. All I will say to the Labour Party, if anyone's watching from the Labour Party, just stop. You look absolutely ridiculous. Why don't people just stop making things up on the internet? Why don't people stop making things up in real life all the time? They're human beings, they're not robots. Some of these things are incredibly dangerous. Some of these things have led to riots. It's causing discourse. And what did we do? We locked those people up. But you complain about that as well. We locked those people up. You literally, I've said this over so many times. If someone incites a riot, they get locked up. It's a crime. That is a crime. Or what you're suggesting is we have new laws to police more things and more speech on the internet, which is going to lead to more people in prison. It's stupidly for breaking election laws. And they let child rapists out halfway through those sentences. We've run out of time. Reserve prison for rapists. Yeah, I mean, we've just got to get a grip on the real issues facing Britain.