by Brian CathcartLord Guy Black, the éminence grise of PCC-IPSO who is also executive director of the Telegraph papers and a working party-political peer, made some striking remarks in a recent House of Lords debate. Although he was commenting on the (regrettable) failure of the Northern Ireland Executive to adopt the Defamation Act 2013, what he said had wider implications. Here are his words:

‘This issue is at heart a constitutional matter because it impacts on the integrity of our legal system, on free speech—which is a fundamental constitutional right—on media plurality and on the ability of citizens to achieve redress of grievance. All those are undermined by the inexplicable actions of the Northern Ireland Executive.

‘Unless we recognise that point—that this is not a matter of legal arcana but an issue fundamentally about the integrity of policy and long-established freedoms—I fear where it will end. Already Northern Ireland is becoming an anarchic force in UK-wide media policy. It is opting out of defamation laws which in many ways will punish ordinary people and is clinging to an oppressive, outdated regime. It has, as we have heard, given no reasons for doing so.’

‘This issue is too important for the Government and, with respect, the Labour Party simply to say it is a devolved matter. If we maintain that approach, that will come back to haunt us in ways which we cannot imagine. The most regrettable thing of the lot is that it is the people of Northern Ireland who will pay the price.’

It is commendable that Lord Black, who was once director of the discredited Press Complaints Commission (PCC) and then became its overseer as chair of the shadowy industry committee PressBoF, should have laid stress on ‘the ability of citizens to receive redress of grievance’.As Lord Justice Leveson found, redress of grievance is something on which Lord Black’s PCC failed very badly, and as this analysis shows, PCC-IPSO, the new press body that Lord Black has helped design, will also fail very badly.He speaks of the Defamation Act as ‘fundamentally about the integrity of policy and long-established freedoms’ and exactly the same can be said of press self-regulation under the Royal Charter. First there is integrity of policy – a cross-party policy overwhelmingly endorsed in Parliament, and based on the recommendations of a properly-constituted public inquiry under a senior judge. What sort of body would seek to defy such a policy? Lord Black’s PressBoF.Then there are those long-established freedoms. The Charter painstakingly safeguards and even enhances freedom of expression, while it also acts to protect the citizen’s freedom to live without being libelled, harassed and intruded upon by large corporations that publish news. Again, who could object? Lord Black’s PressBoF does.As for Lord Black’s comments about anarchy and outdated regimes, make some modest substitutions and you have a very accurate picture of the position over press self-regulation:‘PressBoF is becoming an anarchic force in UK-wide media policy.’ PressBoF did its level best last year to wreck the Royal Charter process, even after it had been approved by every single party in Parliament. Now it is proposing to abuse the power of the press to foist PCC-IPSO on an unwilling public. ‘It is opting out of the Royal Charter and is clinging to an oppressive, outdated regime.’ Indeed, PressBoF is clinging to the outdated, oppressive PCC – so much so that it is rebranding the same faulty process as IPSO and asking news publishers to sign binding contracts of membership for six years. ‘It has, as we have heard, given no reasons for doing so.’ Lord Black has never rebutted the MST analysis of PCC-IPSO, which shows that, contrary to claims made by its backers, it satisfies only 12 of the 38 Leveson recommendations that relate to press self-regulation.‘This issue is too important for the Government and, with respect, the Labour Party, simply to say it is a devolved matter’ (i.e. not their business). Here Lord Black appears to be in favour of firm Government action in a matter relating to free expression, indeed his remarks could be read as saying he wants cross-party cooperation. But with the Charter, another vital free-speech issue, he seemed to suggest that any action by politicians (apart from himself and Lord Hunt and other politicians hand-picked to act for PressBoF) was a bad thing.Finally, ‘the most regrettable thing of the lot is that it is the people of Northern Ireland who will pay the price.’ Exactly the same can be said about IPSO, which aims to cheat the public out of effective, independent press self-regulation – except that the people of the whole United Kingdom stand to pay the price.