Free Speech Theory: A Radical Restatement By Paul Wragg. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2025, 320pp (£81.00 hardback) ISBN 978-1-50995-828-3

offered a philosophically grounded examination on the role of the press in society, and defended a scheme of statutory regulation for the UK press.His latest book shares the same passion for legal philosophy, which Wragg argues, is 'a metric by which to measure the health of the free speech principle in practice'. 1 He bemoans the superficial treatment of the philosophical justifications for freedom of expression in academia and practice.Theory, he argues, is a critical tool that can guide policymaking and jurisprudence.It can help identify flaws in legal reasoning, and even judge 'if a jurisdiction "has it wrong"'. 2Wragg endeavours to reinstate theory to its rightful place, and, in particular, to 'rehabilitate the Millian account of individuality'. 3Both Mill's ideas of truth and truth discovery and Holmes' concept of the 'marketplace of ideas' have received a fair amount of criticism from American theorists. 4 Wragg argues that Mill's conception of freedom is governed by irrationality, and that 'the authentic basis of free speech is individualistic and not communal'. 5 At first sight, this argument in favour of a liberal conception of freedom of expression might be considered a departure from Wragg's previous book, which pleaded for a more stringent regulation of the press. 6 In fact, this book is very much a continuation of Wragg's earlier work.It transfers the exploration of the tension between freedom and regulation from the domain of the press to that of freedom of expression.Its arguments align neatly with those previously advanced.If the press is under no duty to enhance democratic participation, as argued by Wragg in A Free and Regulated Press, then this should apply a fortiori to everyone's right to free speech and to the platforms which enable online communication.Following this argument through leads Wragg to maintain that there is no justification for the regulation of speech other than harm, understood in a narrow sense as harm to individual interests rather than collective ones.Consequently, regulation for plurality or for quality of information is viewed as indefensible.This conclusion also captures the overarching ambition of the book, namely 'to demonstrate the fallacy, in orthodox theory, that constructs the authentic free speech principle according to the societal benefits to be derived'. 7 The groundwork for this endeavour is laid in Part II of the book, which explores