Toby Young accuses Guardian of misinformation over US £5million grant to Free Speech Union article

The headline was misleading, but Young confirms FSU International has expressed an interest with the US State Department

Toby Young, whose Daily Sceptic website is a disinformation hub, platforming climate change denial, covid disinformation and anti-vaxxers on a daily basis has taken great affront against a Guardian article regarding the Free Speech Union receiving a $5 million grant from the US State Department.

Young labelled the article misinformation and posted the following on X.

Earlier today a Guardian journalist sent me this query:

Dear Toby Young,

I’m Aisha Down, a journalist at the Guardian. I’m getting in touch because we’re planning to report that the US state department is considering a grant of $5m to Free Speech Union, your organisation, as part of a new grant-making scheme, and wanted to give you the chance to comment. We would appreciate receiving your comment by 14:30.

We are considering reporting the following:

- The grant to the FSU is part of a package to Maga aligned groups that former US officials have condemned as a misuse of public money to seek influence over foreign politics and interfere with democracy.

- It is rare for the US government to fund partisan political organisations in western countries.

- These grants are likely to pose a challenge to Andy Burnham, who has said he will be “very upfront” with Trump about any disagreements.

- These grants - including to your organisation - are “sole source” grants, meaning they are to be awarded without any competitive process. This is unusual for a highly regulated process which usually requires grantees to show they have a track record for handling funds and clear plans for the money.

- This lack of process has been criticised as “outrageous and absurd” by former US officials, and as “gross incompetence” and “horrible stewardship” of US taxpayer money.

- Your organisation does not appear to have a track record of handling grants of this amount.

- We describe your organisation as “a rallying point for “anti-woke” grievance” which “frequently allies itself with rightwing causes” and say that you, Toby Young, appeared on Rees-Mogg’s GB news show earlier this month to warn about ‘Soviet-style’ censorship in the UK.

- The state department says that its grant to FSU will “support campaigns promoting free speech and countering digital overregulation across the UK, Europe and Australia”. The sole-source award is justified “due to FSU’s global network of free speech activists”.

We would like to fully and fairly reflect your point of view and look forward to your statement. Thank you,

--

Aisha Kehoe Down

Senior Tarbell Fellow,

Guardian News and Media

I replied as follows:

It sounds like a pretty garbled story.

Free Speech Union International, which is the umbrella group that FSU UK, FSU Australia, FSU New Zealand, FSU Canada, FSU South Africa and FSU Brazil sit within, has expressed interest in applying for grant funding from the US State Department. This would be to promote the right to freedom of expression in those countries, which, far from being a partisan cause, is a universal human right. But it hasn’t submitted a formal application and, consequently, has been awarded no grant from the State Department or any other branch of the US Government.

You’ve mischaracterised the FSUs, all of which are non-partisan organisations that defend people who get into trouble for exercising their right to free speech regardless of their political views. The FSU UK, for instance, is currently paying for the legal defence of a protestor who’s being prosecuted for holding up a sign saying “I support Palestine Action”, as well as a protestor for wearing a t-shirt at a Unite the Kingdom rally for saying “Fuck Islam Christ is King”. Yes, we helped Lucy Connolly appeal her sentence -- we thought a prison sentence of over two-and-a-half years for a single tweet was excessive -- but we also tweeted yesterday, condemning the arrest of Heather Herbert and offering our support. Yes, we came to the defence of Nigel Farage when he was debanked, but we’ve also offered to help the Canary in its recent debanking case. So to describe the FSU UK as a “rallying point for anti-woke grievance” is misleading. We are a rallying point for those who want to defend the right to freedom of expression.

Best,

Toby

Below are the sections from the Guardian article regarding the Free Speech Union.

Trump administration to grant $12m to groups founded by UK conservatives Jacob Rees-Mogg and Toby Young

Exclusive: Grants are part of controversial package criticised as misuse of public money to influence European politics

The intended grants, revealed in US government documents, are part of a package of support for European groups viewed favourably by the Trump administration. Some former US officials have criticised the funding as a misuse of public money to seek influence over foreign politics.

The documents reviewed by the Guardian set out details of the grants for the first time.

The state department has also set aside $5m for Free Speech Union International, citing its work “promoting free speech and countering digital overregulation across the UK, Europe, and Australia”.

The group is an offshoot of the Free Speech Union (FSU), founded by the Conservative life peer Toby Young, and acts as an umbrella organisation for international sibling groups with similar goals.

The FSU describes itself as “a non-partisan, mass membership public interest body” fighting for anyone who gets into trouble for exercising their freedom of speech, from Reform UK leader Nigel Farage to Palestine Action protesters.

The group notes: “We take no government money and have no political agenda”. But critics see it as a partisan rallying point for “anti-woke” grievance which has campaigned on issues that have become conservative causes célèbres.

A state department spokesperson said that the DRL grants would “continue to undergo the Department’s standard and rigorous vetting process by grant professionals” and that decisions were still under “active deliberation”. They added: “Our foreign assistance programming is aligned to support our strategic priorities.”

Both grants are “sole source” grants, meaning that they are to be awarded without any competition to 878 and FSU International.

Misinformation

How accurate is Toby Young’s claim of misinformation? The headline is misleading, suggesting the grants have been approved but the details in the article itself appear accurate.

The FSU has spoken with the state department expressing an interest in receiving a funding grant. This interest has been strong enough for the State department to produce documents showing they are prepared to set aside grants for the FSU and other European organisations. These grants haven’t been signed off yet, but once they are, the money will be set aside exclusively for the named organisations, at that point the FSU can formally apply, though as these are “sole grants” it would likely be more a case of filling in the paperwork to receive the money than a full application.

The FSU hasn’t received a grant, yet. This doesn’t mean it won’t in the future, and the fact this has been pencilled into State Department documents shows this is beyond simple speculation and is a real possibility.

Young differentiated between the original UK based FSU and its umbrella group FSU International.

FSU directors are Young, Douglas Murray, Nigel Langstaff, Luke Johnson, Nigel Biggar and Sigrun Olafsdottir.

The accounts show how the FSU has grown since being founded in 2020 to have £786,979 in its members funds.

FSU International directors are Young, Jonathan Benjamin (UK), Lisa Bildy (Canada), Sara Gon (South Africa), Ruben Kirkham (Australia) and Roderick Mulgan (New Zealand).

FSU International’s accounts for last year shows that its a shoestring operation, a website and meetings.

What would they do with $5 million? Would the FSU use this to fund legal action in other European countries, seeking to set up new chapters? If the money was just used to support the work of the existing chapters this would see a substantial increase in their available funds, and have an impact in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa.

Despite Young’s claims of being non-partisan the State Department is only considering these grants because it believes it could advance the strategic priorities of the Trump Administration. The State Department cited FSU International “countering digital overregulation across the UK, Europe, and Australia”, which the FSU has been doing in the UK, opposing every initiative to combat disinformation or protect children from harmful content. The FSU managed to water down the Online Safety Act which was passed by a Conservative government, now it is seeking to have the entire act scrapped.

Young is currently advising Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch on protecting free speech, and has been suggesting that the US’ 4th Amendment should be written into UK law.

The FSU’s stance on free speech and regulation happens to align with the views of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and the other techbros. Young is opposing recent proposals for trusted news sources such as BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Sky being given prominence in social media feeds, accusing the government of seeking to rig the algorithms in their favour. Of course he doesn’t have an issue with Musk’s blatant rigging of the X algorithm to amplify far-right accounts.

Musk has funded FSU legal action in the UK, he also backed a member of the Canadian chapter. Thiel aided in the founding of the FSU. The defence US chapter of the FSU received money from the US anti-abortion group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). ADF International has also funded other legal actions in the UK that have been endorsed by the FSU.

Young travelled to Washington last year to claim the UK has a free speech crisis, ignoring the much more serious clampdown of opposing voices by the Trump administration, Young suggested the US should make trade deals dependent on forcing changes to UK laws on free speech.

An unelected peer calling on a foreign government to effectively dictate the laws of their own country under threat of economic penalties. A peer who has expressed an interest in receiving a substantial grant with that foreign government. After campaigning for Brexit under the banner of parliamentary sovereignty, is Young trying to wield unelected power and influence over the legislature through foreign forces?

Post Orban

While direct funding of the FSU by former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán hasn’t been found, the FSU sits within a network with numerous direct links to Orban, primarily through Orban’s MCC think tank, and the UK based Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation. FSU board member Frank Furedi is director of MCC Brussels.

Hungary’s new Prime Minister Peter Magyar has been revealing the scale of Orban’s influence network, and is beginning the process of dismantling it. With MCC set to be dissolved soon, it seems the Hungarian money tap (often from Russian fossil fuels) flowing into Europe is being turned off.

The State Department handing out grants to European organisations would help plug the gap left from Orban’s fall from power. The European radical right network developed by Epstein, Thiel, and Bannon used Hungary as its base of operations, and the UK could be seen as a potential alternative.

The Response

Toby Young has since published an article in his Daily Sceptic focused on the Guardian article’s author Aisha Down.

The the Guardian ran a legitimate public interest story, but the Daily Sceptic's description of the FSU being “targeted” is an effort to delegitmise the reporting on State Department documents. A Senior Tarbell Fellow is a scheme designed to train and support journalists in reporting on the ethics of AI, nothing to do with the Guardian article but some of the funding has come from an organisation funded by George Soros.

Daily Sceptic writer Charlotte Gill is an obsessive Sorros conspiracy theorist and so has given the impression to readers that the Guardian article is part of a more sinister attack on the FSU. Considering the temperament of the online conspiracy crowd the Daily Sceptic caters to its likely Aisha Down has found her social media feeds filled with a wave of abuse.

Further Reading