A group of over two dozen authors including Stephen Fry, Tom Holland and Ian McEwan, have signed a letter telling the Government to end “cancel culture” by implementing the university Free Speech Act.

The authors join a number of Nobel laureates and more than 600 academics who have already demanded that the Secretary of State for Education Bridget Phillipson implement the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act without delay.

The Times reports: Some of Britain’s most eminent authors have told ministers that literary freedom is being “eroded” by their failure to stand up to “cancel culture” on university campuses.

In an attack on the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, more than two dozen authors accused the Government of failing to safeguard “humane and liberal values”.

They called on her to drop her opposition to implementing legislation that would, for the first time, force universities to protect the right of legal free speech on campus or face sanctions.

Those signing the letter include the novelists Ian McEwan, Lady Antonia Fraser and Lionel Shriver. They have been joined by the philosopher A.C. Grayling, the actor and author Stephen Fry and the former poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion.

Others signatories include Tom Holland, co-host of The Rest is History podcast, the literary agent Neil Blair and the former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies.

Grayling said that he believed in promoting the causes that “wokeism” defended but regarded most “cancelling” as a “mistaken strategy” that could have “a chilling effect on the freedom of expression”.

“A university is a place where every idea, every point of view, however disgusting some might be, should be aired, discussed, analysed, understood and whenever necessary challenged,” he said.

“It is as tough to engage with the views of those with whom one emphatically disagrees as it is to engage with racists and sexists, but to lock them in a box is never more than a temporary solution.”

He added: “Defending free speech in universities, which involves not shutting down dissent and protest, requires using better free speech than the free speech of others when harmfully used.”