London will host this weekend, October 18th and 19th, a new edition of the Battle of Ideas, the debate festival organised by the Academy of Ideas, which, since 2005, has established itself as one of the most important spaces for open discussion on the political, social, and cultural questions shaping our era.
Under the banner ‘Free Speech Allowed,’ the event will bring together over a hundred panels and speakers at Church House, Westminster, for two days of unfiltered debate on politics, science, economics, culture, and law.
Among the participants in this year’s edition, MCC Brussels stands out with a significant role—both as organiser of its own panel and through the participation of several of its researchers and senior staff in multiple discussions.
The institution will open its programme on Saturday morning with the debate “EU in crisis: will the Eurocrats survive?.” The session will examine the growing fragility of the European project after the 2024 European elections, the tension between centrist blocs and emerging parties, and how migration policy and the Green Deal are testing the EU’s institutional stability.
Frank Furedi, executive director of MCC Brussels, will then take part in the panel “Who’s afraid of the populist revolt?”, analysing the rise of populist movements as a response to the widening gap between political elites and ordinary voters. Furedi argues that populism represents a demand for genuine political representation rather than a threat to democracy. He will also speak on Sunday in the session “We need to talk about ‘genocide’,” focused on the evolution of political language and the use of the term to describe modern conflicts such as those in Gaza, Ukraine, and Myanmar.
John O’Brien, the institution’s head of communications, will address the issue of freedom of expression in “Letters on Liberty: The Freedom to Blaspheme” on Saturday. Meanwhile, Jacob Reynolds, head of policy at MCC Brussels, will contribute to two of the festival’s most anticipated debates: “Can we fix the dysfunctional state?”, exploring the efficiency crisis of the British state and the role of technocracy, and “Out with the old, in with the new world order,” reflecting on the shifting global balance after deglobalisation and the return of Donald Trump to the White House.
Ashley Frawley, visiting research fellow at MCC Brussels, will join two sessions on social and educational issues: “Gentle parenting vs smacking,” addressing parenting models and the limits of discipline, and “Should there be a mental-health professional in every school?”, a discussion on the expansion of psychological care in education and the growing medicalisation of childhood. Fellow visiting research scholar Norman Lewis will close the centre’s participation on Sunday with “Europe’s free-speech crisis: hype or reality?”, examining the decline of freedom of expression across the continent and the implications of EU legislation such as the Digital Services Act.
With an agenda packed with more than a hundred debates, Battle of Ideas 2025 once again promises to be a meeting point for academics, journalists, politicians, and citizens passionate about the free exchange of ideas. The strong participation of MCC Brussels—addressing the EU crisis, populism, freedom of speech, and the dilemmas of modern governance—adds a distinctly European dimension to a festival that, year after year, upholds open debate as a cornerstone of contemporary democracy.
