Not content with its assault on free speech in the spoken and online spheres, Britain’s new Labour government is now considering banning wrongthink.
The Home Office, fronted by Labour bigwig Yvette Cooper, could prohibit silent prayer outside abortion clinics, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Parliament voted to ban such ‘protests’ under the previous Conservative administration, but draft guidelines published in December told police that silent prayer—as well as “consensual” communication—should be allowed outside clinics or hospitals conducting abortions. It said:
Silent prayer, being the engagement of the mind and thought in prayer towards God, is protected as an absolute right under the Human Rights Act 1998 and should not, on its own, be considered to be an offence under any circumstances.
It is understood that the new government is now preparing to review these guidelines.
Officials would not specify to the Telegraph which aspects they are looking to alter, but all three Home Office ministers, including Home Secretary Cooper, voted against allowing silent prayer near abortion clinics while they were in opposition.
They are also likely to have been encouraged since the general election by prompting from pro-abortion organisations. Rachael Clarke, of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, argued that
The law was designed specifically to stop activities such as being present all day every day, staring at and approaching women as they try to access confidential medical care, handing out false medical information in leaflets, or standing at the clinic gate with rosary beads and candles.
It should be clear to everyone that these activities are designed to influence women’s reproductive choices—there’s simply no other reason to be present at the gate to an abortion clinic.
Tory peer David Frost responded to reports of a likely upcoming ban on private prayer by noting that “free speech is under threat in Labour Britain, and so too, it seems, is free non-speech.”
One Birmingham priest, Father Sean Gough, was charged in 2022 with violating the law and “intimidating service users” for standing near an abortion centre while silently praying and holding a sign which read “Praying for Freedom of Speech.” Gough said the (then-Conservative) government was “censoring the streets of the UK.” The charges against him were later dropped.
