Actor and self-styled 'anti-woke' activist Laurence Fox has announced a campaign against the alleged politicisation of legal institutions as the latest focus for his Reclaim political party.  

In an article for The Spectator this week, Fox wrote: ’I see Reclaim as a movement: one part is electoral, another is focused on media, and we will be adding a third spike to our trident in the area of law, which I look forward to telling you more about in June.’

The Gazette understands that the campaign has provisionally been named the Bad Law Project, an apparent reference to barrister Jolyon Maugham’s Good Law Project, which has mounted several high-profile legal challenges to government policies. 

Fox set up Reclaim in 2020 'to change freedom of speech laws and to depoliticise the police and other public institutions'. He finished sixth in last year's London mayoral election with 47,634 votes. According to its website, 'Reclaim stands for patriotism and believes hard work should be rewarded. We believe in protecting our borders, supporting forgotten working class communities and, above all, true equality for all Britons - rather than dividing us into narrow, protected groups.'

Fox criticised one legal institution this week when a judge turned down his request for a jury trial in a libel case being brought against him by three public figures over social media posts. In a statement he said: ‘I am disappointed that the court has not ruled there should be a jury trial. I believed this was an ideal case for a jury to sit, especially considering the emotive and zeitgeist issues in play.

‘I think this places any trial judge in the invidious position of having to define “racism” in the 21st century, where I am asking that judge to adopt a common-sense definition completely at odds with the Equal Treatment Bench Book, a document which dictates to judges to think about “racism” in a particular way and act accordingly in their courts every single day.’

 

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