Work in Westminster | Campaigns Officer @SpeechUnion | All views my own.
London, England
Joined December 2021
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Yesterday, the Government effectively reintroduced Britain’s blasphemy laws, 18 years after Parliament abolished them.
Today, they push ahead with the biggest assault on English liberty by restricting our right to jury trials.
The scary thing is: it’s only Tuesday.
Max Thompson retweeted
Giving children a guide to circumvent the puberty blocker ban is child abuse. Why is the National Lottery funding the group behind it?, writes FSU Campaigns Officer @MaxHThompson for @GBNews.
The Love Tank has received National Lottery funding. It has also produced a 53-page booklet advising children how to obtain and use puberty-suppressing hormones despite the 2024 ban.
The guide tells children as young as nine that the ban does not apply to drugs “sourced overseas” and claims puberty blockers “have been safely used by young people for decades”. That flies in the face of the Cass Review and the Commission on Human Medicines, which found the drugs posed an “unacceptable safety risk” to children.
Worse, it explains how children can self-administer the drugs and pay for them using cryptocurrency.
The booklet wraps this advice in child-friendly cartoons and calls the ban “poorly evidenced, misguided and cruel”. What is truly cruel is encouraging children to believe dangerous, life-changing drugs will solve their problems.
This is a national scandal. The Love Tank is putting children in harm’s way — and the National Lottery is funding it.
Meanwhile, the Government is pressing ahead with a conversion practices bill that could leave parents, therapists and religious leaders facing up to five years in prison for well-intentioned conversations with gender-confused children.
Why is the National Lottery funding a group that puts children at risk?
Read more from Max below 👇
Max Thompson retweeted
The Free Speech Union is deeply concerned by what has happened in the Welsh Parliament.
A Reform Senedd member, Joe Martin, has been barred from speaking by the presiding officer, Huw Irranca-Davies, after he described Mr Martin’s contribution in the chamber as “discriminatory” and “offensive”.
Mr Martin had asked the Welsh Government for a statement on what he called the “demographic replacement of white British people”.
In a free and democratic society, we elect politicians to speak on our behalf about the many concerns affecting us, locally and nationally — even when those concerns are uncomfortable or disagreeable.
The presiding officer’s decision sets a worrying precedent: sanctioning a democratically elected member for raising concerns on the floor of the chamber.
Over the past year, we have seen a growing trend of legislative proceedings — especially local government codes of conduct — being used to silence elected officials. In most cases, the targets have been Reform UK and independent members who raise safeguarding and mainstream concerns.
Read more from FSU Campaigns Officer @MaxHThompson 👇
Max Thompson retweeted
THIS 👇👇👇👇
The proposed Conversion Practices bill risks an authoritarian government usurping the role of parents in their children’s lives. It may also be the biggest threat to gay rights since Section 28: my column in @heraldscotland
heraldscotland.com/politics/…
Max Thompson retweeted
Giving children puberty blockers is child abuse, why is the national lottery funding it? - Max Thompson
gbnews.com/opinion/national-…
Max Thompson retweeted
It has been more than a week since Andy Burnham and Angela Rayner met Muslim community leaders around the Cabinet table in Downing Street to discuss “anti-Muslim hostility”, criticise political opponents for their language and reportedly pledge to appoint an “anti-Muslim hostility” tsar by the end of the week.
So far, no tsar has taken the crown.
Labour continues to throw red meat to placate extremists who threaten its electoral ambitions — and we are paying for it with our right to free speech.
Angela Rayner appointed a Working Group of five individuals, all with troubling links to Islamist organisations, to draft the definition. Who on earth could the new “anti-Muslim hostility” tsar possibly be?
Read more below from FSU Campaigns Officer @MaxHThompson 👇
Max Thompson retweeted
Cruel and archaic conversion practices that try to force someone who is gay to be straight are, of course, abhorrent. That is why they are already illegal.
But, as is becoming increasingly common, the Labour government is obsessing over legislating for issues that are not actually a problem, and its Conversion Practices Bill is a prime example.
Under the draft Conversion Practices Bill, parents, therapists, and religious leaders could face up to five years behind bars for well-intentioned conversations with gender-confused children, or for sharing their faith's teachings on sex, gender, and marriage with their congregations.
Government figures show that Labour's Conversion Practices Bill could cost businesses and taxpayers up to £100 million over a decade. Businesses and taxpayers are already facing enough pressure in the current economic climate.
We cannot afford this bill.
Read more below 👇
Max Thompson retweeted
Parents should not face up to five years in prison for refusing to accept that their child identifies as a cat.
A human child cannot be a cat. End of the matter.
We are not a serious country at the moment.
Cat-gendered? Stop this madness now
telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/11…
Max Thompson retweeted
Evening all. Just catching up on the socials now. It was an honour to be invited to speak to the joint committee. I'm exhausted but pleased to have been able to explain some of the very serious problems with the draft bill, and will be following up with the committee on several points
🧵 Second panel at the Joint Committee on the draft Conversion Practices Bill:
Dennis Kavanagh, Gay Men’s Network
Helen Joyce, Sex Matters
Dermot Kehoe, LGB Alliance
Watch live: parliamentlive.tv/Event/Inde…
Max Thompson retweeted
Naz Shah MP has an unerring eye for problems with legislation and she’s hit the nail on the head here
Max Thompson retweeted
In Downing Street yesterday, Andy Burnham and Angela Rayner met Muslim community leaders around the Cabinet table.
The Prime Minister used the opportunity to take a cheap pot-shot at his political rivals, accusing them of using “unacceptable language” about Islam.
This isn’t the first time Labour politicians have accused their rivals of being “Islamophobic” or sought to police speech about Islam.
Another revelation from the meeting is that Angela Rayner is reportedly set to announce the appointment of an “anti-Muslim hostility” tsar this week.
Rayner appointed five people to a working group tasked with drafting the definition. All had troubling links to Islamist organisations, including the Muslim Council of Britain and MEND.
The Communities Department, which Rayner leads, also said it had deleted all responses to the working group’s consultation — responses that were vital to drafting the definition.
After pressure from Nick Timothy and the threat of legal action from the Free Speech Union, the ministry announced that it did have the responses after all, but would not show them to us.
This has only fuelled speculation that the Government allowed extremists to influence what is now Britain’s de facto Islamic blasphemy law.
Who on earth is she going to appoint as the new Islamophobia tsar?
Watch FSU Campaigns Officer @MaxHThompson 👇
Max Thompson retweeted
The Conversion Practices Bill is one of the most dangerous, illiberal and invasive pieces of legislation ever to come before MPs.
It will criminalise well-intentioned conversations between parents and gender-confused children, and between religious leaders and those seeking guidance on their faith’s teachings about sex, gender and marriage.
Parents who try to dissuade their children — at any age — from embarking on dangerous, irreversible and life-changing medical pathways could face five years in prison.
Unlike similar bills introduced in the past, this Bill contains no carve-outs to protect these vital conversations.
It is not the role of the state or ministers to dictate what parents can or cannot say to their children around the dinner table.
In a letter to the pre-legislative scrutiny committee, the Equalities Minister even had the audacity to claim that the Bill respects parental responsibility. It does not.
The committee will hear evidence from witnesses for the first time tomorrow, and has now opened its call for evidence.
The Free Speech Union is calling on the Prime Minister to drop this Bill. It is an assault on free speech and religious freedom.
Watch FSU Campaigns Officer @MaxHThompson and sign our petition below 👇
Max Thompson retweeted
The anti-Muslim hostility definition has had a chilling effect on free speech.
Since its publication in March, it has been used to silence people who wish to criticise, debate or mock Islam — including private citizens, politicians and comedians.
It has made it harder to speak about issues such as Islamist extremism and the grooming gangs scandal.
Labour has revived Britain’s blasphemy laws for Islam alone, by the back door, 18 years after Parliament abolished them.
Angela Rayner appointed five people to the Working Group tasked with developing the definition. Each of the five members had troubling links to Islamist organisations, and the Government will not say who it consulted as part of its call for evidence.
So who on earth will it appoint as its “anti-Muslim hostility” tsar?
The Free Speech Union does not have high hopes.
Labour is chasing the Muslim vote after hampering support over recent years in Muslim communities. It is sacrificing our right to criticise religion on the altar of electoral ambition.
It is both sinister and shameless.
Max Thompson retweeted
Today, the Courts and Tribunals Bill came before peers in the House of Lords. It includes controversial plans to restrict our ancient right to trial by jury.
Andy Burnham has sacked David Lammy and dropped his plans for judge-only trials. Yet ministers still claim that removing the right to elect a jury is the most effective way to reduce the Crown Court backlog.
The Institute for Government says the reforms would save just 2% of Crown Court time — not the 20% ministers promised.
FSU research has also found that people charged with speech-related offences are almost twice as likely to be acquitted in a Crown Court with a jury than in a magistrates’ court without one.
Andy Burnham has been warned to expect a rebellion from Labour peers over these plans. And so he should.
Watch FSU Campaigns Officer @MaxHThompson 👇
Max Thompson retweeted
Today marks 100 days since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister.
Keir Starmer led the most hostile government towards free speech in modern British history. Andy Burnham’s first 100 days suggest he could be even worse.
Different Prime Minister. Same hostility towards our fundamental right to free speech.
Parents should not face up to five years in prison for having important conversations with their children.
What country are we even living in?
Sign @SpeechUnion’s petition calling on Burnham to drop this divisive Bill 👇
Prevent should really be the last tool of the state to kowtow to activists in their bid to silence legitimate criticism and mockery of Islam.
This undermines public trust in the state to actually protect us.
It has been weaponised to silence Robert Jenrick and @JohnCleese.
In Britain today, we have a de facto Islamic blasphemy law, ushered in by the Labour Government’s official “anti-Muslim hostility” definition.
It is being enforced by the police, the courts and now the Government’s own counter-terrorism programme, Prevent.
A programme tasked with stopping people becoming terrorists is being used by activists and extremists to silence legitimate criticism or mockery of Islam.
In recent weeks, comedian @JohnCleese was referred to Prevent and faced calls from Muslim activists to have his Birmingham show cancelled over comments he made about Islam on social media.
Reform UK Shadow Chancellor @RobertJenrick was reported to the Metropolitan Police and referred to Prevent after he called radical Islam the biggest threat to our country and called for the burqa to be banned on @danwootton’s show.
Robert isn’t wrong, is he? Radical Islam is a threat. MI5 has said that Islamist terrorism is the biggest threat to Britain.
Restore Britain leader @RupertLowe10 was reported to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for linking Muslims and Pakistanis to the rape gangs, despite Baroness Casey’s report concluding that Muslim men of Pakistani heritage were disproportionately involved in these heinous crimes.
Conservative Shadow Justice Secretary @NJ_Timothy was reported to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards by Labour MPs, branded “Islamophobic” and faced calls to resign from then Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer after criticising a mass Muslim prayer event in Trafalgar Square.
Reform UK was reported to the Equality and Human Rights Commission by 28 Labour MPs over its comments criticising Islam and the same mass Muslim prayer event.
It was the Islamist website 5Pillars that broke all these stories. A Home Office unit, RICU, has even labelled the group a “subject of Islamist extremist concern”.
These activists know what they are doing. The sinister weaponisation of Prevent will undermine public trust in the programme.
We must not let an Islamic blasphemy law take root in Britain.
Watch FSU Campaigns Officer @MaxHThompson 👇
Max Thompson retweeted
Ofcom Admits Online Safety Act Has Failed to Protect Kids order-order.com/2026/10/23/o…
