A Heretic's Manifesto: Essays on the Unsayable

Product Information

Transgender interviewees complain about their identity becoming a ‘debate’, while refusing even to acknowledge that gender self-identification means the end of single-sex spaces. Eurocrats are rightly worried about the outcome of next year’s elections to the European Parliament.

The delusions of the elites carry more weight than truth itself – that is how arrogant the new authoritarianism has become; how determined our rulers are to remake reality in the image of their own fevered opinion. The lesson from Gender Wars is that when fantasy is allowed to overrule reality, all possibility of rational discussion is closed off. They discuss the Voice to Parliament referendum in Australia, the latest on Rishi Sunak’s crusade against smoking, and Labour’s plan to criminalise misgendering. MEPs are terrified of the rise of populism and of movements committed to national sovereignty, and they are directing their anger towards Hungary.One in which the powers-that-be punish not only the expression of certain beliefs and ideas, but also the expression of fact itself.

We see, and love, the vast improvements in racial equality gifted to us by the 20th century; they tell us white supremacy is as rife as ever.The mainstream, pro-EU parties – especially Greens, Socialists and Liberals – fear that their opponents could make serious headway. This is censorship’s grimmest offence – in shaming and silencing dissent, it delays our discovery of real, new truths, in this case the truth that shutting down society, education, civil liberties and global trade was always likely to have devastating consequences. People with ability should be cherished and supported to thrive, regardless of irrelevant characteristics.