Rob Field

📣🚨 NEW FSU MEMBER TESTIMONIAL In 2020, cartoonist Stella Perrett was cancelled by the Morning Star, a daily communist news paper which she had illustrated for since 2015. Trade unions threated to cut funding for the newspaper after it published a cartoon of Stella’s which showed a crocodile claiming to be “transitioning as a newt” as it entered a pond full of newts who objected to the crocodile coming in. Deemed to be a transphobe, the trade union council held a meeting to force the Morning Star to cancel Stella as their political cartoonist. The paper apologised for the cartoon, put staff through retraining and were faced with potential closure for the first time in its 70 year history due to the trade unions threatening to pull funding. The cartoon was also reported to Avon & Somerset Police and recorded as a non-crime hate incident. The Free Speech Union sent a pre-action letter of defamation to the Morning Star, and a demand for an apology and right of reply to the claims made about her. Stella was the second women’s rights activist the Free Speech Union ever supported. Our single biggest category of cases involve people who get in trouble for expressing their gender critical views.