Talking politics == my free time, and I don't want to exchange my leisure hours for talking politics with my co-workers. The entire rest of your life can be talking about politics with your friends, your life shouldn't just be work.
It seems the real problem is too much of people's lives is work and so they think they have no time to talk politics.
What country is such a workers' paradise? De Tocqueville wrote that the US was a nation whose social life was composed of overlapping circles of voluntary associations, which sounds much more like the situation here than that (to my eyes) dystopic description (of a world where one's only relations are not only by a single path, but that path is tied to the economic), so I'm assuming you're living elsewhere.
Now people are avoiding that person. Team cohesion suffers. People are calling in sick to avoid the stress of it all. Management is dealing with shit from both sides.
What would you do if you were running the company?
If you want to let people talk politics at work, you can’t just limit it to the politics you agree with.
Do those involve anything as awful as what's happening in China? If they were and you were asked to comment, how would it make you feel?
> I have to say I also find it chilling to say we can't discuss topics which have political implications
Sure you can! Just not at work. Mate, don't do it. Take it from someone who can't keep his mouth shut.