For the first time in British legal history, a judge has acknowledged that the right to criticize Islam is protected by law. The landmark verdict, which invokes the Equality Act 2010, was delivered by Judge David Khan at an employment tribunal in favor of Patrick Lee, a veteran British actuary who resigned from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) in 2020 after being investigated for tweets critical of Islam. Free speech campaigners hail the verdict as a death blow to efforts by the Labour Party and Islamists to protect Islam from criticism by legislating a state-endorsed definition of “Islamophobia.”
Free speech is the bedrock of democracy.
The Case Against Lee
The case against Lee arose after he published a batch of social media posts in which he described Islam as a “dangerous cult” and criticized its founder, which led to complaints by a charity called the Islamophobia Response Unit.
After a four-year disciplinary process, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA), the U.K. regulator overseeing specialists in risk management, found Lee guilty of professional misconduct last April for tweeting offensive posts on Islam between March and August 2020. The judgment, delivered by the IFoA disciplinary panel on April 22, 2025, ordered Lee to pay £22,667 in costs. He had been charged by the Institute with using language “designed to demean or insult Muslims.” He had resigned his position in September 2020.
Lee, an atheist and longtime IFoA member who had served on its council and management board, appealed the ruling on the grounds of free speech, arguing that his criticisms of Islam were philosophical beliefs protected under the Equality Act 2010. In a landmark judgment handed down earlier this year, Judge David Khan sided with Lee, affirming that individuals have a legal right to criticize Islam—marking the first time a British court has explicitly recognized such protection.
Fired for “Islam-Critical” Tweets
The IFoA—a group whose roots date back to the 1800s—had stated Lee’s “conduct could reasonably be considered to reflect upon the reputation of the actuarial profession as a whole.”
As evidence, it provided 83 of Lee’s tweets and retweets, as well as a complaint from the charity, the Islamophobia Response Unit, which accused Lee of “Islamophobic hate speech,” giving as evidence screenshots of 17 of his tweets.
Lee’s posts labeling Islam as “morally bankrupt,” a “dangerous cult,” and a “1300-year-old con trick,” and describing its prophet Muhammad as a “monster,” were found to be “offensive,” “inflammatory,” and “designed to insult Muslims.”
One tweet called Muhammad “a slaver and a rapist.” Another noted: “Islam and Islamic regimes cannot be reformed: at the heart of Islam is a monstrous lie: that Mohammed (a man who enslaved, raped, tortured, beat, and approved of stoning, female genital mutilation, and child marriage) is an excellent role model. Islam is fundamentally evil.”
In one post from May 2020, Lee wrote: “I would agree that the Islamic Republic is as dangerous as a virus & more evil: the virus is not sentient. But isn’t #Islam the real cause? Is a religion whose founder (according to its own sacred texts) ordered people to be *tortured to death* not evil? #Speak Up About Evil.”
Employment Tribunal Exonerates Lee
The IFoA verdict was struck down by an employment tribunal in a preliminary hearing presided over by Judge Khan, who delivered his ruling in July. In his written judgment issued on November 3, Khan observed that Lee provided “cogent, consistent, and credible evidence” for his view that “unreformed Islam” is “problematic for Western liberal democracies.”
Lee’s reasons for his view that “unreformed” Islamic beliefs constitute a threat to “Western values” include Islam advocating violence against non-believers, promoting unequal status for women, calling for the death penalty for apostasy, blasphemy, or homosexuality, rejecting the separation of religion and state, and seeking to impose religious law, the judge noted.
The reasons also included promoting antisemitism or hatred towards groups (including reformed Muslims), condoning child marriage, permitting forms of slavery or indentured servitude, and justifying wife-beating and female genital mutilation, Khan said.
Gender Critical Case Sets Precedent For Criticism of Islam
The employment tribunal’s decision follows a 2021 ruling in favor of researcher Maya Forstater, who was similarly fired for tweets critical of the transgender movement. Some of her colleagues and some transgender persons had complained that her views were offensive and “transphobic.”
However, the tribunal ruled that her views qualified as “philosophical beliefs” under section 10 of the Equality Act 2010. Such a belief must meet five criteria: the belief must be genuinely held, based on current information, concern a substantial aspect of life, attain a level of cogency, and be worthy of respect in a democratic society.
Lee, who is soliciting donations to cover his legal expenses, argued that his tweets are a manifestation of his philosophical beliefs, based on “reasoned analysis rather than prejudice.” He also cited his record of donations to causes helping Muslim communities, including around £30,000 to Iran Aid and to the U.K. charity Free From Fear, which assists Afghans fleeing the Taliban.
“In the same way that the Forstater judgment was ground-breaking in establishing that gender-critical views were WORIADS (worthy of respect in a democratic society), I’m told that the judgment in my case is ground-breaking in establishing that Islam-critical views are also WORIADS,” Lee told Focus on Western Islamism (FWI).
Lee Explains Why He Fought For Free Speech
Lee, an atheist, explained why he appealed the IFoA panel decision:
Free speech is the bedrock of democracy. If professionals like me (or doctors, nurses, teachers, solicitors, barristers, police, clergy, etc) are barred from saying anything controversial (which is effectively what the IFoA has imposed on their members via their Actuaries’ Code), then they cannot take part in any debate about important political and social matters.
The actuary, who was a member of the IFoA for 34 years, having served on its council and management board, told FWI he fought his case for three main reasons:
First, because democracy suffers if professionals are prevented from taking part in important debates. Second, because I believe in the famous quote, ‘All that it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to say nothing.’ Third, because, despite what the IFoA says, it cannot be morally right to punish people for speaking up about verses [from Islamic texts] that condone serious crimes.
Free Speech Union (FSU) director Lord Toby Young.
(Photo by By Raj Curry - Flickr via Wikimedia.)
Lord Toby Young of Acton, the head of the Free Speech Union, said that the “landmark judgment will make it much harder for the Government to roll out an official, state-approved definition of ‘Islamophobia.’”
“The judge in this case has grasped the important distinction between disrespecting a belief and disrespecting a person who holds that belief,” Young observed. “Too often, robust criticism of Islam is treated as a form of harassment against Muslims and conflating the two has had a chilling effect on free speech.”
Final Hearing in February
Lee will face a final seven-day hearing in February, during which the Central London Employment Tribunal will decide whether the IFoA acted unlawfully regarding his protected beliefs, which are “worthy of respect in a democracy.”
A spokesman for the IFoA said: “The IFoA’s independent disciplinary process operates to ensure that the public has confidence in the work of actuaries and that the reputation of the actuarial profession is safeguarded.”
“We acknowledge the decision of the employment tribunal at this preliminary hearing but are unable to comment further while proceedings remain ongoing,” the spokesman added.
Author Douglas Murray, whose books are also quoted in Lee’s witness statement, welcomed the ruling: “If Mr. Lee had made the same comments about a Jewish or Christian prophet, he would never have found himself in any trouble. In fact, he’d have probably been offered a book contract and a slot on Thought for the Day.”
“But our society has lived for years with a de facto blasphemy law when it comes to Mohammed and the foundations of the Muslim faith,” Murray lamented.
