LONDON — The U.K. Labour government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer has confirmed it will continue the controversial full review of British pornography laws ordered by former Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in July 2023.
The initiative — led by a Conservative, unelected member of the aristocratic House of Lords, Baroness Gabrielle Bertin — was in limbo after Sunak’s resignation following his party’s defeat in July, after 14 consecutive years of being in power under five Prime Ministers.
A representative of the review told XBIZ on Thursday that the team had been “waiting to hear from new Ministers to understand the future of the review and where or whether it fits in with this government’s plans.”
The rep added they could “confirm that the Review will be proceeding as planned, and aims to report this year.”
Sunak’s mandate to the Baroness Bertin-led team was that he wanted “all legislation covering pornography both on and offline to be reviewed to ensure that it is ‘fit for purpose’ in tackling exploitation and abuse,” Conservative newspaper the Telegraph reported in 2023.
Bertin said that the review aimed to “future proof the law” as technology evolved.
As XBIZ reported, earlier this year Sunak’s government released a public questionnaire soliciting opinions from the general public about “the impact of pornography” and “the effect of porn on relationships, mental health and attitudes towards women and girls.”
A Free Speech Coalition representative told the BBC at the time that it was “wary” of the review’s framing of sexual expression as “a threat and a societal harm,” but hoped the Tory government was “honest in its invitation to involve the adult industry in this discussion” and not merely using it as a “pretext for censorship.”
Sunak’s review was unveiled shortly prior to the passage of the controversial Online Safety Act, with the former PM stating that because “there are currently different regimes that address the publication and distribution of commercial pornographic material offline, such as videos, and online,” the government wanted to “ensure any pornography legislation and regulation operates consistently for all pornographic content.”
The U.K. — a monarchy with no written constitution and an unelected, aristocratic chamber of Parliament that includes hereditary peers like Bertin — has no blanket free-speech protection like the U.S. First Amendment.
Baroness Bertin is a career politician with a degree in French from Southampton University and does not appear to have any advanced education or professional background on any of the areas relevant for such a review. She is best known as a close associate of former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, for whom she acted as spokesperson.
Bertin’s first statement in her new role, asserted that “the damaging impact that extreme pornography is having on society cannot be allowed to continue unchecked.”
Since then, review staffers have contacted XBIZ, industry trade group Free Speech Coalition and other stakeholders, seeking to open a dialogue about their process.