KB-2024-002315 - [2025] EWHC 1782 (KB)

The claimant seeks damages in libel in respect of an email sent by the defendant that said he had posted comments that were deeply troubling and antisemitic, unacceptable, prejudicial, discriminatory and incompatible with holding office for the defendant. The defendant’s defence is that the email constituted a statement of honest opinion, amounting to a defence under section 3 of the Defamation Act 2013.

It is common ground that the email was a statement of opinion and that it indicated, in general terms, the basis for that opinion (specifically, tweets that had been sent by the claimant). The claimant does not deny that the defendant held the opinion expressed in the email. The only issue between the parties, which is critical to the defence under section 3, is whether an honest person could have held that opinion based on facts proved by the defendant. That issue will determine the outcome of the case. It is an entirely objective issue. The defendant seeks summary judgment on the issue, and hence the claim. It says that the claimant has no real prospect of success and there is no other compelling reason why the case should go to trial. The claimant says that the defendant has taken his tweets entirely out of context and that he has a real prospect of success on the question of whether an honest person could have believed that his tweets, read in context, were deeply troubling and antisemitic. He says they were the opposite, in that they were intended to, and did, call out hypocrisy and antisemitism.