In today's woke-infested society, cancellation can take many forms. Sometimes it might mean that work colleagues, who had once been your friends, refuse to have anything more to do with you. Even worse, if you work on a freelance basis, it could mean that your clients will no longer be prepared to use your services, either because they disapprove of your views or because they fear that others will cancel them if they associate with you. In my case, cancellation took a more formal process - namely disqualification from being the trustee of a charity.

I had been a trustee of several charities, the most significant of which was the Jewish National Fund UK, for which I served happily and successfully as a trustee for twelve years until February 2023, the final four of which were as its honorary treasurer. In July 2023 I was shocked to receive a letter from the Charity Commission, informing me that they proposed to disqualify me from any charity trustee role for three years (I was not then a charity trustee). They listed five incidents. The first two were Facebook posts from 2014 and 2016, expressing concern about certain aspects of political Islam, the next two involved "likes", in 2017, of uncontroversial posts from the American political activist Pamela Geller, and the last one was when, in 2021, I wrote that Angela Rayner had not yet apologised for her "Tory scum" remark and that comments like that led to events like the murder of Sir David Amess MP.

I regarded this action by the Charity Commission as both wrong and totally out of proportion. I was fortunate to have the means to be able to afford a top firm of solicitors and an expert King's Council. We replied to the Charity Commission before its deadline for representations, which was in August 2023. Instead of responding within a month or so, they decided to prolong the matter by taking eight months to respond. When in April 2024 they did reply, they upheld four of their five complaints, dismissing only the post relating to Angela Rayner, and reducing the disqualification sentence from three to two and a half years.

I then appealed to the General Regulatory Chamber for a formal hearing, and this took place over two days in November and December 2024, adjudicated at a tribunal by an independent judge and two panel members. On 6 February 2025 they quashed the disqualification order.

I think this is the first time in history that the Charity Commission have lost a legal case of any substance, and it is probable that "Gary Mond vs Charity Commission" will become a textbook case. The two issues which were decisive for the appeal panel were (i) that nothing I wrote rendered me unfit to be a charity trustee, and (ii) it was not in the public interest to disqualify me.

The key issue, however, is freedom of speech.

I regard it as imperative that everyone, including charity trustees, must be free to express their opinions, political or otherwise, as they see fit. Of course, they should not indulge in hate speech, but at no point in my case was I ever accused of doing that. It was claimed that my views were not those that a charity trustee should disseminate because they might undermine charities generally. That was utter nonsense.

My landmark case should have the consequence of putting the Charity Commission under the spotlight. Whether it does or not remains to be seen. I want to find out if other charity trustees have been disqualified for social media posts, who perhaps, unlike me, lacked the necessary means to fight a disqualification order. In any event, my experience shows that freedom of speech, and the political tolerance that must go with it, are under threat and every effort needs to be made to defend it.

My experience is a warning, and a timely one, with Angela Rayner's proposed blasphemy law coming fast down the tracks. This latter piece of legislation would herald the end of free speech forever, and hence we have to fight it.

In today's woke-infested society, cancellation can take many forms. Sometimes it might mean that work colleagues, who had once been your friends, refuse to have anything more to do with you. Even worse, if you work on a freelance basis, it could mean that your clients will no longer be prepared to use your services, either because they disapprove of your views or because they fear that others will cancel them if they associate with you. In my case, cancellation took a more formal process - namely disqualification from being the trustee of a charity.

I had been a trustee of several charities, the most significant of which was the Jewish National Fund UK, for which I served happily and successfully as a trustee for twelve years until February 2023, the final four of which were as its honorary treasurer. In July 2023 I was shocked to receive a letter from the Charity Commission, informing me that they proposed to disqualify me from any charity trustee role for three years (I was not then a charity trustee). They listed five incidents. The first two were Facebook posts from 2014 and 2016, expressing concern about certain aspects of political Islam, the next two involved "likes", in 2017, of uncontroversial posts from the American political activist Pamela Geller, and the last one was when, in 2021, I wrote that Angela Rayner had not yet apologised for her "Tory scum" remark and that comments like that led to events like the murder of Sir David Amess MP.

I regarded this action by the Charity Commission as both wrong and totally out of proportion. I was fortunate to have the means to be able to afford a top firm of solicitors and an expert King's Counsel. We replied to the Charity Commission before its deadline for representations, which was in August 2023. Instead of responding within a month or so, they decided to prolong the matter by taking eight months to respond. When in April 2024 they did reply, they upheld four of their five complaints, dismissing only the post relating to Angela Rayner, and reducing the disqualification sentence from three to two and a half years.

I then appealed to the General Regulatory Chamber for a formal hearing, and this took place over two days in November and December 2024, adjudicated at a tribunal by an independent judge and two panel members. On 6 February 2025 they quashed the disqualification order.

I think this is the first time in history that the Charity Commission have lost a legal case of any substance, and it is probable that "Gary Mond vs Charity Commission" will become a textbook case. The two issues which were decisive for the appeal panel were (i) that nothing I wrote rendered me unfit to be a charity trustee, and (ii) it was not in the public interest to disqualify me.

The key issue, however, is freedom of speech.

I regard it as imperative that everyone, including charity trustees, must be free to express their opinions, political or otherwise, as they see fit. Of course, they should not indulge in hate speech, but at no point in my case was I ever accused of doing that. It was claimed that my views were not those that a charity trustee should disseminate because they might undermine charities generally. That was utter nonsense.

My landmark case should have the consequence of putting the Charity Commission under the spotlight. Whether it does or not remains to be seen. I want to find out if other charity trustees have been disqualified for social media posts, who perhaps, unlike me, lacked the necessary means to fight a disqualification order. In any event, my experience shows that freedom of speech, and the political tolerance that must go with it, are under threat and every effort needs to be made to defend it.

My experience is a warning, and a timely one, with Angela Rayner's proposed blasphemy law coming fast down the tracks. This latter piece of legislation would herald the end of free speech forever, and hence we have to fight it.