ISLAND OF STRANGERS: In-Person and Online

BOOK LAUNCH: ISLAND OF STRANGERS

Thursday 11th June, 7.30pm

DR BEN JONES in conversation with CONNIE SHAW

6.45pm doors open, welcome drinks (included in ticket price).

7.30pm to 9pm interview and Q & A.

9pm drinks reception (cash bar).

Central London (venue details provided with ticket purchase) and on Zoom.

Tickets:

In-person tickets FSU Members £15; Non-Members £20.

Online Tickets £10 to non-members (purchase here in Ticket Tailor).

Online Access Free to FSU Members (free link provided in FSU Newsletters).

Book on sale at a special discount: £18.50 collection at the event; £21.50 UK delivery.

ISLAND OF STRANGERS: Diversity, Decline and Free Speech In Crisis is a sobering examination of Britain’s free‑speech climate by Dr Ben Jones, a director and leading spokesman of the Free Speech Union, who has spent years dealing directly with the people being investigated, sacked, arrested or silenced for lawful opinions.

The book asks an uncomfortable question: can free speech survive in a society that no longer shares a common moral or civic framework?

Drawing on frontline experience rather than culture‑war rhetoric, Jones delivers a stark, uncompromising account of how mass migration, the collapse of shared moral norms, and the rise of identity politics have combined to produce a new kind of censorship: pervasive, unevenly applied, and enforced as much by fear as by law. He argues this shift isn’t party‑political, rather it is structural: a consequence of social fragmentation, institutional incentives and the disappearance of shared moral assumptions.

From two-tier policing and speech crimes to the quiet return of blasphemy laws and the erosion of equal justice, ISLAND OF STRANGERS contends that Britain is no longer a cohesive society, but a collection of rival communities governed by different rules. As trust drains away and people increasingly censor themselves, freedom of expression — once Britain’s proudest inheritance — is becoming unspeakable.

Likely to provoke debate across politics, society and public policy, ISLAND OF STRANGERS isn’t a culture‑war polemic, it’s a compelling account of how a liberal democracy functions once it stops agreeing who “we” are — and why speech restrictions then become inevitable.

If you can't attend in person, you can order a copy of the book here, for UK delivery. If you are attending in person, purchase a copy of the book alongside your ticket for collection at the event.