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Atheist Patrick John Lee wins a landmark UK tribunal ruling, defending his fact-based criticisms of Islam and free speech against professional sanctions over 84 tweets.

Patrick John Lee is the man behind a major win against the United Kingdom’s planned back-door Islamic blasphemy laws.

The win seemingly scuttles UK Labour’s sinister plans to legislate a ban on so-called “Islamophobia”.

Judge David Khan handed Lee, an atheist, the victory for free speech during a workplace tribunal hearing in July.

Yet to be published online, Judge Khan ruled that the risk assessor and software engineer’s online criticisms of Islam were protected under the UK’s 2010 Equality Act.

As reported by both GB News and The Telegraph, the judge said Lee’s comments stemmed from his genuine beliefs.

“I do not find that these tweets and the pleaded belief are mutually exclusive. Nor incompatible,” Judge Khan explained.

He then stated that the tweets were only restating historical facts, ideology, and rituals “officially sanctioned by Islamic leaders”.

Effectively, Judge Khan considered Lee’s criticisms as factivism and, as such, slammed the gavel down in favour of free speech.

Ardent Atheist

Lee’s troubles began when risk assessor regulator The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) reprimanded him over 84 Twitter posts.

IFoA claimed each of Lee’s posts was an attack on Islam. So, the IFoA punished him for “hate speech”.

In their words, his posts were “offensive, inflammatory and designed to demean or insult.”

According to The Actuary magazine, the IFoA said, “Lee was in breach of the Integrity principle of the Actuaries’ Code (version 3.0) and constituted misconduct.”

For the fact-based criticism of Islam, he was sanctioned, expelled, and then banned from IFoA membership for 2 years.

Lee then appealed the decision, protesting the way his words were being used against him.

In a witness statement dated December 2023, Lee expressed a passion for “evidence-based” approaches.

This, he added, is why he chose Atheism over Christianity.

Denying IFoA’s accusations, the 43-page document painstakingly clarifies all 84 tweets (now deleted) to add context, qualify intentions, and justify his criticisms. (Also see here.)

Nodding to IFoA’s selective outrage, Lee noted that Islam wasn’t the only plausibility structure he saw as being problematic from a “human rights perspective”.

His concerns about institutional religions included the political power historically wielded by Christianity.

Explaining his beliefs further, Lee said he followed “two key principles wherever possible”.

1. The golden principle, “behave towards others as you would like them to behave towards you.” (Matthew 22:39)
2. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” (Edmund Burke paraphrased)

He is politically minded and actively so, because that’s how you help improve society and the world, Lee argued.

The IFoA were well aware of this civic-mindedness, he said.

Lee then added that his comments were political speech, saying, “all language is capable of offence, especially within political debate.”

No harm was intended, he affirmed.

His “aim was to educate non-Muslims about the violent behaviour attributed by religious texts to Islam’s founder.”

Continuing Battle

On X, Lee said the “fight isn’t over.”

“Unless the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries concede, I will have a seven-day employment tribunal hearing in February 2026.”

There, “a judge will decide whether the IFoA discriminated against me due to my Islam-critical belief.”

An apparent CrowdJustice fundraising page set up by Lee said he was suing the IFoA for discrimination and harassment.

This will be the necessary next step in pursuing justice and creating a precedent to stop the “progressive” push to police criticism of Islam as racism.

“As a general rule, it is harmful to democracy if citizens are fettered in their freedom to participate in debates on important social and political issues,” Lee wrote.

“This is particularly a problem when it comes to an honest and open discussion about Islam, which is a belief system with profound social and political consequences.”

Lee’s example here was “the IFoA specifically objecting to him mentioning the predominantly Pakistani Muslim element of the grooming gangs.”

Surely, he concluded, “we want to live in a democracy where reasoned and evidence-based criticisms of Islam cannot result in the sort of penalties imposed on me.”

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