Why the Laurence Fox libel ruling should trouble us all

The actor turned activist did not get justice at the High Court

The actor and political commentator Laurence Fox lost a High Court defamation case earlier this week after a judge ruled that he had libelled two individuals - drag queen Colin Seymour and former deputy chair of Stonewall Simon Blake - when, during a spat on X (formerly known as Twitter), he labelled each of them a ‘paedophile’. (A third claimant, broadcaster and activist Nicola Thorp, had a similar claim against Fox thrown out at a preliminary hearing.)

Fox is something of a Marmite character: his anti-woke opinions have won him many supporters, but also made him an enemy of liberals and progressives everywhere.

Regardless of all that, however, the judge’s decision in this case is, to my mind, an extremely troubling one, and one which carries all sorts of implications for the future of political debate and disputation on social media.

The two individuals targeted by Fox had each branded him a ‘racist’ after he had posted criticism of Sainsbury’s for its decision – taken, according to the firm, ‘in response to the Black Lives Matter movement’ – to establish ‘safe spaces’ for its black employees. The supermarket chain had also informed customers – in true virtue-signalling fashion – that they should take their business elsewhere if they did not want to shop with an ‘inclusive retailer’.

Fox accused the company on X of promoting ‘racial segregation and discrimination’ and said that he would no longer shop at its stores.

It was at that point that Seymour and Blake weighed in and accused Fox of being a racist. Fox suggested, in turn, that the pair were paedophiles.

When posting the retorts, Fox cited the original posts containing the charge levelled at him - so observers were able to see the context of his comments - and employed the kind of sardonic tone which is designed to show that a remark is not intended to be taken literally. So to Seymour he wrote simply, ‘Says the paedophile’ and to Blake, ‘Pretty rich coming from a paedophile.’

To anyone with a modicum of common sense, it was obvious that Fox was not making a genuine allegation of paedophilia, but was instead attempting to turn the methods of his accusers back on them. He was effectively saying, ‘Look, you are seeking to harm my reputation by casually smearing me as a racist, and that’s a pretty nasty thing to do, so I will do the same thing to you by casually smearing you as a paedophile. Now see how you like it.’

While, as Fox has himself admitted, his actions in engaging in this type of tit for tat were not terribly wise – I’m reminded of Tony Benn’s advice to ‘never wrestle with a chimney sweep’ – one would have to be blazingly ignorant to not see the point that he was trying to make and to conclude that he really was asserting that the two individuals were paedophiles. The judge in the case, however, disagreed and found that Fox had no defence to the claims against him. (Curiously, the judge rejected a counterclaim from Fox that the statements accusing him of being a racist were defamatory.)

I should say, by the way, that as much as I support the concept of freedom of expression, I don’t believe that it should extend to affording people the right to make statements about others that are demonstrably false and harmful to their reputation. For that reason, a law that protects individuals against genuine defamation and gives them the right to seek redress when it causes serious harm to them is necessary and right.

But context is everything in these matters, and it is extremely difficult to believe that anyone could have observed the exchange between Fox and the two claimants and thought that in each case his comment was intended as a statement of fact.

In fact, defamation law - and I know this from experience, having won a claim for libel - is built around the questions of how the statement complained of would strike the ‘ordinary reasonable reader’ and whether the target of the statement can truly be said to have suffered ‘serious harm’ as a consequence of it. So in a scenario where someone makes a bald and public allegation of paedophilia leading to severe injury to reputation, the accused could legitimately expect to win a claim for defamation. And quite right, too.

But where, as in the Fox case, the accusation is plainly meant ironically and is made in the context of the accuser having himself been the target of what he considers to be malicious and unfounded accusations by his interlocutors, and where he expressly draws attention to those accusations in a way that allows the reader to see the particular context, things are surely a little less straightforward.

More broadly, it isn’t hard to see how the decision in this case might have a chilling effect on freedom of expression across social media. People may well think twice before levelling satirical or ironical accusations at others - especially the high and mighty or those with deep pockets - lest that other party argue the comments should be taken literally and launches a legal claim on that basis.

Debate on social media is frequently ill-tempered and unpleasant. Participants will often engage in mockery, insinuation and exaggeration. Many of us would not have posted the comments that Fox did. But verbal jousting, one-upmanship, hyperbole, sarcasm and insult are all the nature of the social media beast. They are also, whether we like it or not, features of living in a free society.

In egregious cases, the target of defamatory statements should have the right to obtain relief through the law. But I do not believe this was such a case. And I do not see how any right-thinking person could believe otherwise.

I hope Laurence Fox appeals the judge’s decision. And I hope, for all our sakes, that he wins.

---

I appeared in my regular Friday evening slot as a panellist on GB News’s Dewbs & Co last week. The episode can be viewed here.

---

A reminder that you can follow me on X/Twitter: @PaulEmbery