John, you have a very recent memory.
The left has a long and honourable tradition of fighting against censorship and 'preaching free speech', both here and in the US. Mary Whitehouse, Spycatcher, Section 28, McLibel, or further back, opposing wartime censorship, opposing limits on anti-strike publications, supporting conscientious objectors' rights. In the US, anti-McCarthyism, the ACLU (founded by socialists/progressives), famously including the Skokie case. In the present day, championing whistleblowers like Assange and Snowden, pushing for net neutrality (opposing corporates' censorship rights), and supporting the right to protest.
It's a great shame that a slice of the modern progressive left have abandoned these principles (or possibly never held them), but they are not the totality of the left.
I'm a centrist/centre-rightist, but I can recognise the great and principled stand that people from many intellectual traditions have done to uphold and expand free speech. There's a reason that in the US, "liberal" means leftist: because the left and liberalism have been so deeply intertwined.
To me, liberal principles are more important than left and right. I'm hoping one silver lining of wokeist over-reach is that it has led many traditional leftists to appreciate that more deeply.