Free speech under fire as cancel culture crosses political lines

A Daily Mail debate column by Frank Furedi argues that cancel culture is spreading from the Left to the Right and threatens free speech in the West. The piece centers on the assassination of Charlie Kirk, whom it describes as an ultra-conservative commentator, who was shot last week while addressing students at Utah Valley University. The column portrays the incident as a flashpoint that has intensified political confrontations and raised fears about how opponents are silenced in politics.

According to the column, Jimmy Kimmel, the host of a late-night show on a Disney-owned network, was suspended and effectively canceled for comments about Kirk’s killing. The author says Kimmel’s remarks drew backlash and that his program was put off the air as the controversy intensified. The piece notes that former President Donald Trump seized on the moment on social media, portraying Kimmel’s suspension as evidence that ABC had yielded to political pressures. The column maintains that such episodes illustrate a shift in which those who criticize the government face consequences similar to those faced by political opponents in other contexts. By midweek, the column states, Kimmel was off the air indefinitely, and Trump used social media to claim the show had been cancelled. The author cautions that such developments threaten the norms of public discourse and the perception that political disputes can be argued freely.

The column also traverses responses across campuses and beyond, including cross-Atlantic echoes. It highlights Ted Cruz’s call for an Oxford student to be expelled for comments about Kirk’s assassination, and notes a post from George Abaraonye, the Oxford Union’s president-elect, that celebrated Kirk’s killing before recounting that Abaraonye and Kirk had debated at the university weeks earlier. While the author acknowledges the value of free debate, he argues that punishing individuals for distant expressions can chill inquiry and undermine the very principle of open discourse. The piece critiques what it calls offence archaeology, a practice of dredging up years-old remarks to discredit political opponents, and cites the case of Peter Mandelson as an emblem of how past communications can be weaponized in contemporary politics. The author stresses that while he detests Mandelson, weaponizing old messages to ruin a career mirrors tactics once associated with repressive regimes and undermines democratic norms.

The broader argument contends that divisions in the culture wars have grown so deep that opponents on both sides struggle to see each other as human beings. The column asserts that free speech includes the right to satirize and challenge opposing beliefs, so long as the discourse does not incite violence. It laments the sense that the right has relied on the Left’s tools in recent years to police jokes, opinions, and even thoughts, and warns that this trend risks eroding the social fabric that sustains pluralistic politics. The author frames the issue through a personal lens, recalling life under a Communist regime in Hungary in which people spoke one private language at home and another in public, guarded for fear of surveillance. That memory, the column argues, underscores why the capacity to speak openly—without being destroyed by a single misstep or a decade-old miscue—is essential to a free society.

According to the piece, cancel culture is not the sole province of one political camp. The author contends that the right’s adoption of aggressive silencing tactics could corrode public trust and degrade civil discourse just as surely as left-leaning censorship if left unchecked. He concludes by reaffirming a conviction that real freedom in the West means the right to express controversial opinions and to test ideas through debate, while maintaining a basic recognition of shared humanity. In this view, the danger lies not in heated rhetoric alone but in the reflex to punish opponents for dissenting voices, a habit that, if allowed to take root, could hollow out the democratic space for all.

Professor Frank Furedi is the director of the think-tank MCC Brussels and the author of the column from which these observations are drawn. The piece calls for vigilance against the erosion of free speech on both sides of the political spectrum and emphasizes the importance of maintaining humane, civil dialogue even amid strong disagreements.