With President Donald Trump’s slated departure for a state visit to the United Kingdom later this month, another high-profile arrest has exposed Britain’s growing free speech crisis.
The arrest of Arizona-based Irish comedian Graham Linehan, for allegedly criticizing transgender activists on social media, coincided with a Wednesday warning from British politician Nigel Farage to Congress that England is collapsing into a “really awful authoritarian situation.”
The leader of the populist Reform U.K. party, Farage, told U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday at a hearing on “European threats to free speech” that the sitcom writer Linehan found out what life is like in the totalitarian North Korean state on Monday at Heathrow Airport in London.
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The arrest of Linehan in a nation that is widely considered one of the birthplaces of robust free speech has unleashed fierce criticism of the left-wing Labor government.
Comedian and actor John Cleese, whose film “The Life of Brian” satirized a biblical man who wished to become a woman named Loretta and have babies, wrote to his more than 5.3 million followers about Linehan: “I see that it took five London policemen to arrest a comedian. Meanwhile, people in Chelsea have learned not to waste their time reporting burglaries. Is this an intelligent use of resources?”
President Donald Trump declared on Thursday, that “I will just say that in terms of, U.K., strange things are happening over there. They are cracking down and surprisingly so. And I’ve spoken to the prime minister and, let’s see what happens. But, it is a different a little bit different situation. I’m very surprised to see what’s happening.”
Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer said at a February White House meeting, “We’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom — and it will last for a very, very long time.”
Egregious examples of a crackdown on free speech in recent years abound, according to critics in the U.K. and U.S., under both Conservative and Labor governments.
In January, Hertfordshire police arrested parents Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine for messages shared in a parents’ WhatsApp chat group. Six officers searched their residence, and the couple were detained for eight hours over a spat with Cowley Hill Primary School. The school complained about Allen’s remarks about the hiring process for a senior teacher.
The Essex police launched an investigation into conservative Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson for an allegedly racist X post that criticized the police in November 2024. She wrote, in the context of pro-Palestinian rallies, many of which embrace the terrorist organization Hamas: “How dare they. Invited to pose for a photo with lovely peaceful British Friends of Israel on Saturday police refused. Look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters.”
In August, business owner Rob Davies, whose store had suffered from shoplifting, was advised by police to remove a handwritten note stating, “Due to scumbags shoplifting, please ask for assistance to open cabinets.” Davies refused and was not arrested.
The authorities jailed Lucy Connolly, wife of a Conservative party politician, because she posted an allegedly racist message on X after Axel Rudakubana murdered three children in Southport in August 2024. “Mass deportation now. Set fire to all the f—— hotels full of the b——- for all I care. While you’re at it, take the treacherous government and politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist, so be it.” She deleted the post within four hours. The court imposed a 31-month prison sentence on Connolly.
The vast crackdown on freedom of speech and thought in the United Kingdom is raising alarm bells on both sides of the Atlantic. Critics have alleged other forms of curbs on speech and thought in Britain.
Lois McLatchie Miller, a senior legal communications officer with the Britain-based Alliance Defending Freedom International, told Fox News Digital that the British authorities are using drastic measures to curtail the right to prayer. She said, “We support several individuals who have been praying silently near abortion centers.”
She cited the “most expensive prayer in history as one example” when Adam Smith-Connor, a British veteran of the Afghanistan war, in 2022 engaged in “three minutes of silent prayer,” that led to an order that he pay approximately $11,330.
“Adam was praying for his son, whom he lost to an abortion 22 years prior. He was also praying for the men and women facing difficult decisions about abortion that day,” according to the Alliance Defending Freedom International.
Vice President JD Vance warned that “Free speech, I fear, is in retreat” with respect to Smith-Connor’s case at the Munich Security Conference in February. McLatchie Miller said, “What JD Vance did was phenomenal.”
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McLatchie Miller cited additional alleged victims of Britain’s fast-moving crackdown on free speech, including the case of Catholic pro-life campaigner Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, who was “arrested for a thought crime,” close to an abortion clinic for silent prayer in 2022.
Livia Tossici-Bolt, a retired medical scientist, was arrested for standing outside an abortion facility with a sign stating: “Here to talk if you want.” The authorities arrested her for violating a “buffer zone” law that restricts protests at abortion clinics.
Scotland has been a kind of ground zero for restrictions on free speech rights for the pro-life community. The authorities arrested grandmother Rose Docherty for her silent protest outside an abortion facility in Glasgow. She held a sign that read: “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, if you want.”
Shawn Carney, president and CEO of the Texas-based 40 Days for Life, told Fox News Digital that his pro-life organization has U.K. citizen leaders who oversee networks in Britain. He termed the crackdown in the U.K. a “newfound bigotry for free speech. It has developed over the last few years.”
Asked why Britain is reportedly gutting free speech, he said, “My only guess is, the more pro-life the U.S. has gotten, the more they target their own citizens who are pro-life.” Carney added that the U.K.’s restrictions on free speech are also a reaction to Trump’s pro-life policy. “The U.K. has been the laughingstock of free speech in the West,” said Carney.
