In the wake of the brutal murder of Charlie Kirk, the war on free speech threatens democracy and freedom on both sides of the Atlantic, writes Herald columnist Mark McGeoghegan.

Charlie Kirk was many things. He was a misogynist who called on women to “submit to your husband”. He was a racist who opposed the US Civil Rights Act that ended racial segregation, and said of Michelle Obama that she did “not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously – you have to go steal a white person’s slot.” He was a far-right firebrand who made a litany of outrageous and reprehensible statements throughout his life, from endorsing stoning homosexuals as “God’s perfect law” to advocating the use of “lethal force” against immigrants.

He was also a champion of free speech. As much as he supported his own right to say these things and advocate policies that most of us would find atrocious, he supported the rights of others to hold the polar opposite view, even if he loathed that view. I don’t say that to paint Mr Kirk as a paragon of virtue, far from it, but to point out the incredible, if unsurprising, hypocrisy of MAGA Republicans who are exploiting his horrific assassination to justify cracking down on the American left and to silence their opposition.

Free speech is under attack on both sides of the Atlantic. That is a reality that anyone opposed to the rising tide of authoritarianism in the collective West should recognise.

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