TOBY Young has hit out at PayPal’s decision to shut his accounts as “a real assault on free speech” from “woke corporations”.
The financial giant made the decision last week to shut Mr Young’s Free Speech Union accounts claiming his organisation were responsible for Covid ‘misinformation’.
Commenting on the decision in an interview on GB News on Saturday, Mr Young said: “I see this as a real assault on free speech. I mean, we’ve heard about other big tech companies kicking people off their platforms, in some cases, withholding banking facilities because they disapprove of something perfectly lawful that they’ve said they disagree with. But I think this is the first time a big tech company has actually shut down an organisation that just stands up for the right of people to say what they want to say in the public’s mind.
“It’s really significant. We see this kind of thing happening in China. It’s the social credit system in China. If you say something that the Communist Party authorities dislike, they’ll withhold banking facilities from you, they’ll make it impossible for you to buy food in a supermarket. It’s an appalling totalitarian form of control. But we’re now beginning to see the same thing in the West except instead of ideological dogma being imposed by the Communist Party, it’s being enforced by these woke corporations.
“I do respect PayPal’s freedom of association, as a Conservative, but I wouldn’t defend their right to discriminate against a customer based on their religious beliefs or the colour of their skin. So nor do I think it’s right that they should discriminate against customers on the basis of their political beliefs. And if they were operating in the UK, that would be unlawful and that would be a breach of the Equality Act.
But because they’re headquartered in Luxembourg, and the mothership is in California, there’s nothing we can do about it.”
