Delivering the fourth annual Jillian Becker Lecture on Friday 4th February 2022, Nigel Farage delivered a speech about the greatest threats to freedom today.

After successfully leading UKIP and the Brexit Party, Nigel now has his own show on GB News. A great defender of freedom, he continues to be one of the most influential political voices in the UK. The lecture was held at the Victory Services Club in London.

If you are in a position to do so, please consider becoming a member of The Freedom Association and/or making a donation to The Freedom Association to help us in our work promoting our important ten core principles of a free society which are constantly under threat. It also enables us to hold similar events, not just in London, but across the whole of the UK. 

By Andrew Allison, Chief Executive

It has been a terrible week for Boris Johnson. Before Christmas, Number 10 had hoped that the so-called 'Partygate' scandals would be forgotten about. Instead, matters have got far worse. 

I am not going to go into detail about all of the parties which have taken place in Number 10. But what I will say is that there is a "do as I say, not as I do" culture inside the heart of Government, and that no-one appeared (or appears) to be interested in changing that culture.

In the House of Commons last Wednesday, the Prime Minister said that when he mixed with 40 people all merrily chatting and drinking in the evening sunshine, he hadn't realised that it was a party. That stretches incredulity to breaking point. I don't begrudge anyone a drink after work; I have done it plenty of times myself over the years, but the problem is that at the time that particular party took place, if you or I had sent an email around to colleagues suggesting that they bring their own booze to an after work party in a garden, we would have been fined up to £10,000 for breaking Covid laws. 

Likewise, the images of the Queen sitting alone in St George's Chapel, Windsor, during Prince Philip's funeral are in stark contrast to the two parties in Downing Street the previous evening, where some people left with an empty suitcase to fill it up with booze at a local convenience store so as not to arouse the suspicion of police officers when they returned. 

I will always be grateful to Boris Johnson for eventually getting us out of the European Union, but as I have said on numerous occasions, the Government is not taking full advantage of the benefits Brexit has to offer. Instead the tax burden is at its highest since Clement Attlee was in power; inflation is rising; electricity and gas bills are rising; the cost of petrol and diesel have risen substantially over the last year. The Government could immediately scrap VAT on domestic fuel, but it will not. It could help families and businesses by scrapping the planned rise in National Insurance this April, but has no plans to do so. Next year, Corporation Tax will rise from 19 per cent to 25 per cent.

Boris Johnson has lost the trust of many people. Patients died in hospitals alone because their families were prevented from visiting them. Many friends and family of those who died were prevented from attending their funerals. Celebrations were cancelled. When trust is lost, it is very difficult to regain it.

For the Prime Minister to survive he needs to offer a truly heartfelt apology. He can't hide behind technicalities and exemptions. He needs to remember that we hold those in Government to high standards. They are not above the law.

He needs to understand that this year is going to be an extremely difficult year for millions of people. You can't grow the economy by constantly increasing the tax burden on families and businesses.

All of us want to live in a clean environment, but stop the doomsday rhetoric. Most people don't believe that we are at a minute to midnight and that if we don't act now, the earth is doomed. Allow businesses and entrepreneurs the time to develop the technologies required to move us in this direction. Stop banning things; stop setting arbitrary targets; stop inflating all our energy bills with green levies. We can't afford any of this. Let the invisible hand of the free market do its work. 

The Prime Minister needs to show real leadership. He also needs to have a huge clear-out at Number 10. The operation there is shambolic. 

If he fails to understand the hopes and aspirations of ordinary people; if he fails to fully appreciate the sacrifices we have all made since March 2020; if he thinks that laws he pushed through Parliament don't apply to him, then he is doomed. In short, if he can't turn the Johnson supertanker around in record time, he may not have a future as its captain. I suspect, though, that it is already too late. 

Photo Credit: Boris Johnson - Michael Tubi / Shutterstock.com

Please join us on Monday 4th October at 4.00 pm at the Museum of Science and Industry, Liverpool Rd, Manchester, M3 4FP.

Andrew Allison (Chair), Chief Executive of The Freedom Association 

David Campbell Bannerman, Chairman of The Freedom Association. 

Baroness Fox of Buckley. Claire is an independent Peer and Director of the Academy of Ideas.

Alex Deane. Conservative commentator, TFA Council and Management Committee member. 

Chris Green MP. Chris is the Conservative MP for Bolton West and a member of The Freedom Association. 

A conference pass is not required to attend this event or the other events in the Liberty Zone. 

By Andrew Allison, Chief Executive

I never thought that I would be quoting Kermit the Frog in one of my pieces, but I also never thought that I would hear a British Prime Minister quoting the said puppet in the United Nations General Assembly, either. And Kermit was right: it's not easy being green, despite what Boris Johnson thinks. In an irony not lost on most of us, the PM flew to New York to beat the drum for renewable energy, when over here in the UK a summer of very little wind has helped plunge us into an energy crisis. What many of us predicted has come to pass: relying on wind turbines to provide a large percentage of our energy needs is not a viable option.  

The speech he delivered to the United Nations General Assembly was full of Boris-isms, and completely lacking in reality. The UK is responsible for around one per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. We could all wear our hairshirts and shut down UK PLC tomorrow, but it won't make any difference when China continues to build dozens of coal-fired power stations. 

'The rich man in his castle; the poor man at his gate', is the opening line of one of the verses of the hymn, All things bright and beautiful. The reality is that many rich people live the life to which they have become accustomed because of the money they earn from wind turbines on their land, and all of us have to cough-up an additional 23 per cent on our energy bills to pay for them, including some of the poorest in the country. And to make matters worse, businesses are also paying inflated energy bills, making their goods and services more expensive and less competitive.

It's alright for people like Zac Goldsmith, a man sitting on millions of pounds of inherited wealth: he can easily afford to pay more in energy bills. It appears that Carrie Johnson isn't too bothered how much she spends on bills, either, judging by the amount of money it cost to refurbish the flat above 11 Downing Street.

Boris Johnson was elected by voters in the former 'red wall' on a mandate of both getting Brexit done and leveling up. We have left the European Union, although fisheries and Northern Ireland were, as I predicted almost two years ago, thrown under the bus. Leveling up does not mean forcing people into fuel poverty by increasing their bills, and forcing them to replace gas boilers with heat pumps. Leveling up does not mean paying more in taxes, especially when voters were promised that taxes would not be increased. In a great interview last week for The Sun, Ben Houchen, the Tees Valley Mayor (who is also one of our members), said, "As we are coming out of Covid I don’t think it is helpful either to businesses or individuals to start raising taxes. I believe that as a politician you need to stand by what you said. The biggest issue for me is that it was very clear in our manifesto there wouldn’t be any tax rises.”

Ben was reelected in May with 72.8 per cent of the vote. If Boris Johnson thinks he's popular, he has nothing on Ben. He should start listening to him. 

In a Freedom Association webinar held on Tuesday 4th May 2021, we discussed, “What's the BBC for? Should it be defunded or reformed?”

The panellists were:

Andrew Allison: Andrew is Head of Campaigns for The Freedom Association.

Nick Ross: Nick is a broadcaster, journalist, and campaigner. He became a household name in the UK launching breakfast TV, Watchdog and Crimewatch and flagship radio programmes including World at One, PM and The World Tonight.

Lord Moylan. Daniel was appointed a Conservative Peer in 2020. He was chairman of the London Legacy Development Corporation, deputy chairman of Transport for London, and chief airport adviser to Boris Johnson as Mayor of London. A lifelong listener of BBC Radio 3, he has described the radio channel as being "infected by a sort of relentless wokeness".

The webinar was chaired by David Campbell Bannerman, Chairman of The Freedom Association and a former Conservative MEP from 2009-2019, representing the East of England.

Click here to become a member of The Freedom Association. Click here if you would like to make a donation to support our work. 

Please join us for our next webinar on Tuesday 4th May at 6.00 pm. We have a great panel ready to discuss, “What is the BBC for? Should it be defunded or reformed?”

Confirmed panelists are:

Andrew Allison: Andrew is Head of Campaigns for The Freedom Association.

Nick Ross: Nick is a broadcaster, journalist, and campaigner. He became a household name in the UK launching breakfast TV, Watchdog and Crimewatch and flagship radio programmes including World at One, PM and The World Tonight.

Lord Moylan. Daniel was appointed a Conservative Peer in 2020. He was chairman of the London Legacy Development Corporation, deputy chairman of Transport for London, and chief airport adviser to Boris Johnson as Mayor of London. A lifelong listener of BBC Radio 3, he has described the radio channel as being "infected by a sort of relentless wokeness".

The webinar will be chaired by David Campbell Bannerman, Chairman of The Freedom Association and a former Conservative MEP from 2009-2019, representing the East of England.

To register, click here. 

Our Head of Campaigns, Andrew Allison, chatted with Mark Littlewood, Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs about the now aborted European Football Super League, what future the economy has post-Covid, and free speech & cancel culture.

Click on the image below to watch it. 

In another episode in our series of 'Free Spirits' podcasts, Andrew Allison, Head of Campaigns, chatted to Mike Graham of talkRADIO about the life of Prince Philip, the opening of hospitality, cancel culture and the media.

Andrew Allison, Head of Campaigns at The Freedom Association, talked with Lee Anderson, Conservative MP for Ashford about the former red wall seats, free speech, cancel culture, and even about having a vegan pint of beer!

Andrew Allison, Head of Campaigns at The Freedom Association, talked to William Yarwood, President of the University of Exeter Freedom Society, about why the society is important and successful, and why there should be freedom societies in every university in the UK. They are easy to set-up and The Freedom Association will assist you every step of the way.

Please consider setting-up a Freedom Society in your university today.