All 12 months, the sense has been rising that freedom of speech is damaged in Britain, and that it have to be mounted. US Vice President JD Vance was one of many first to attract consideration to it. In a gathering with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer within the Oval Workplace in February of this 12 months, the vp expressed his issues on to the prime minister. Later that month, Vice President Vance expanded on the theme as he addressed the Munich safety convention in Germany. There, he stated that Europe’s best menace was posed not by Putin’s Russia or by Center East radicalism, however “from inside,” as European leaders ignored voter issues on issues reminiscent of free speech. He cited for example the lately enacted ban in Britain on all protest—even peaceable protest—inside the bounds of an abortion clinic. Even silent vigil and prayer have been banned in Britain inside so-called “abortion zones.” These caught in breach of such a ban are committing a legal offence and could also be fined and even jailed.
Britain’s pals in america are proper to attract consideration to the difficult state of free speech within the UK, even when a few of them are on the identical time posing issues totally free speech in America. The vp’s (and others’) response to those that appeared to rejoice—or not sufficiently to sentence—the current homicide of Charlie Kirk is severely troubling, from a free speech viewpoint. Once we search to cancel these whose speech we detest, we undermine any credibility we’d in any other case have as a free speech champion, for the take a look at of our dedication to free speech lies in our willingness to defend speech we hate.
Be that as it could, the factors about British free speech Vice President Vance (and others) have been making this 12 months demand consideration and cautious scrutiny. Allow us to give attention to the message, not the messenger. 4 current points shine mild on the problems.
Take Allison Pearson, a widely known newspaper columnist and cultural commentator in Britain. She tweeted an image of cops standing subsequent to folks she believed have been pro-Hamas protesters. She requested: “How dare they?”—implying that the police must be arresting the protesters for supporting Hamas reasonably than standing alongside, apparently facilitating them. She described the folks within the image as “Jew haters.” When it was identified that the folks depicted have been actually demonstrating a few matter regarding Pakistan, and that the image had nothing to do with the Israel-Hamas battle, the tweet was deleted. However this didn’t cease cops from visiting her household dwelling one Sunday morning to warn her that she could have dedicated an offence in posting the tweet and that, if she did it once more, she was liable to be arrested.
Or take Lucy Connolly, the spouse of a Conservative councillor. In July 2024, three kids have been stabbed to demise and ten different folks (eight of them kids) have been injured in a horrific assault in Southport, Merseyside (close to Liverpool). Misinformation in regards to the attacker unfold instantly on social media, claiming (falsely) that the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker. Riots unfold throughout the north of England, as anger erupted over the homicide and maiming of youngsters. A couple of thousand arrests have been made in reference to the riots, which noticed critical public dysfunction and harm to property. On this local weather, Lucy Connolly posted a tweet expressing anger at immigration coverage and saying “set fireplace to all of the [expletive deleted] resorts filled with the bastards for all I care,” referring to resorts in Britain housing asylum seekers. She was arrested and charged with the offence of inciting racial hatred. She pleaded responsible and was sentenced to 31 months’ imprisonment. She was launched in August 2025 after serving 40 % of her sentence, whereupon she described herself as Sir Keir Starmer’s “political prisoner.”
As brilliant a line as attainable must be drawn within the legal regulation between speech which is threatening or abusive, and speech which is merely offensive.
Thirdly, contemplate Graham Linehan, well-known each because the creator of the hit Nineties TV present Father Ted and, extra lately, as an outspoken and typically intemperate critic of gender self-identity. Linehan has moved to Arizona, quitting Britain, not least as a result of he considers it a rustic the place freedom of expression is now not protected. Returning to Britain in September 2025 to face trial on costs of harassment and legal harm, he was arrested by armed cops at Heathrow Airport over tweets he had posted 5 months earlier, wherein he had stated, amongst different issues, that should you meet a trans man in a female-only area (reminiscent of a ladies’s bathroom) they usually refuse to depart, you must “punch him within the balls.” Linehan was arrested for inciting violence. He was so enraged by this that he needed to be taken to hospital to be handled for dangerously hypertension.
Lastly, contemplate Palestine Motion, a direct-action group that agitates in opposition to British authorities, army, and business help for or collaboration with Israel. In July 2025, when two Palestine Motion activists unlawfully entered a army base in Oxfordshire and spray-painted two RAF plane, the Authorities proscribed Palestine Motion as a terrorist organisation. Demonstrating help for a proscribed organisation is a legal offence in Britain. In September 2025, throughout public protests in opposition to the choice to proscribe, 890 arrests have been made. The choice to proscribe Palestine Motion is controversial and is at the moment being challenged within the courts.
If these 4 episodes kind (no less than a part of) the case for the proposition that free speech is damaged in Britain, how does that case stack up? What ought to we make of the proof to this point?
The Allison Pearson and Lucy Connolly instances involved the identical regulation—the offence of stirring up racial hatred. This isn’t a brand new offence: it has been on the statute guide since 1965. The offence is to make use of “threatening, abusive or insulting” phrases or behaviour that are both “meant or possible” to fire up racial hatred. This offence, first enacted within the Race Relations Act 1965, was the UK’s first hate crime. Since then, hate crimes have been prolonged to cowl not solely racial hatred, however hatred on grounds of faith, sexual orientation, and different such traits. Nonetheless, the offence of stirring up racial hatred is broader than these later, newer offences in two regards. First, outdoors of the context of race, it’s only threatening or abusive phrases or behaviour which might be prohibited, not “threatening, abusive or insulting” phrases; and secondly, outdoors of the context of race, the offences could be dedicated solely deliberately, not the place it’s both “meant or possible” that hatred can be stirred up.
The narrower formulation, I’d argue, is to be most well-liked. Nobody must be criminalised solely as a result of they’ve insulted somebody, and nobody must be criminalised as a result of their phrases are merely “possible” to fire up hatred. If you happen to use threats or abuse and should you intend to fire up hatred, there’s a good argument that such motion ought to expose you to legal legal responsibility. In any case, you can’t use your fists to threaten or abuse, so why must you have the ability to use your phrases to take action? Even in america, what the Supreme Courtroom refers to as “preventing phrases” are afforded no safety underneath the First Modification (see Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 US 568 [1942]).
This, then, is the primary repair that the Allison Pearson and Lucy Connolly instances counsel is required for Britain. The scope of the offence of stirring up racial hatred must be narrowed, in order that it covers solely threats and abuse (and never mere insult), and in order that it may be dedicated solely deliberately. The second matter that the case of Lucy Connolly particularly throws up is the size of the sentence. I don’t contemplate that Connolly was any form of free speech martyr; nonetheless much less, that she was a political prisoner. What she posted to X was appalling: if calling for asylum seekers to be burnt to demise within the resorts which home them doesn’t represent “preventing phrases,” nothing does. That stated, nonetheless, the size of her jail sentence struck many observers as laborious to justify, however that England’s Courtroom of Enchantment upheld the sentence as acceptable within the circumstances.
The Graham Linehan case is equally controversial. Making an arrest for inciting violence 5 months after the alleged offence passed off, when no proof seems to have been introduced that any violence in opposition to trans males in feminine areas was really carried out underneath the inspiration of Linehan’s messaging, appears hardly a proportionate use of police sources. In fact, Linehan has kind on the subject of talking out: his Twitter account was completely suspended in 2020 for repeated allegations of hate speech and was reinstated solely after Elon Musk acquired Twitter two years later. Even within the Musk period, Linehan’s X account has been (quickly) suspended for breaching X’s phrases of service. That his “punch him within the balls” tweet is much from the primary event when Linehan’s speech has been referred to as into query could lead some to assume the September 2025 arrest was inevitable. Others could take the view that the truth that Linehan was returning to the UK to face what, on any account, are extra critical legal costs—albeit costs he denies—means that the arrest was merely excessive. If Linehan sues for wrongful arrest, as he has indicated he would possibly, the matter could but find yourself requiring judicial decision.
The Palestine Motion case is totally different. It issues not offensive (or hateful) speech, however speech which the authorities have deemed to be opposite to nationwide safety. Underneath the UK’s anti-terrorism laws, the Authorities has the ability to proscribe any terrorist organisation. Terrorism is given a broad definition in UK regulation: it extends to motion “designed to affect the federal government” which entails, amongst different wrongs, “critical harm to property.” A proscribed organisation is an unlawful organisation. Membership of a proscribed organisation is a critical legal offence, as is expressing help for a proscribed organisation. This latter offence is just like, albeit broader than, the supply of US regulation upheld as appropriate with the First Modification in Holder v. Humanitarian Legislation Venture 561 US 1 (2010), wherein advocacy for a “international terrorist organisation” was held to be able to constituting “materials help” so long as the advocacy was co-ordinated with the organisation in query and never supplied independently of it.
For all these causes, my plea can be that our American pals maintain holding our ft to the hearth.
I’d draw three conclusions from the episodes narrated right here. The primary, and most essential, is that as brilliant a line as attainable must be drawn within the legal regulation between speech which is threatening or abusive, and speech which is merely offensive. Threats and abuse, whether or not bodily or verbal, could effectively appeal to legal legal responsibility, however the legal regulation ought to don’t have anything to do with speech that’s merely offensive. The reply to offensive speech is to not criminalise (or cancel) the speaker however to talk again, exhibiting with your personal phrases why the offensive speaker is mistaken or wrongheaded. It is a line that the regulation within the UK doesn’t all the time respect. The over-breadth of the offence of stirring up racial hatred—the offence about which Allison Pearson was warned and of which Lucy Connolly was convicted—is however one instance. There may be additionally an offence within the UK of “grossly offensive” digital communications. The Legislation Fee really helpful in 2021 that this offence was unfit for objective and must be repealed, however Parliament declined to behave on this recommendation, and the offence stays on the statute guide.
Secondly, the safety the regulation accords to freedom of expression relies upon in follow not solely on what Parliament writes into laws, but additionally on police and prosecutorial discretion and, certainly, on the discretion of judges handing down sentences. The Linehan saga reminds us of this. Many will assume that there’s little improper with a regulation in opposition to inciting violence. Many will, on the identical time, assume that sending 5 armed officers to Heathrow Airport to arrest Linehan for a five-month-old tweet is a disproportionate and unreasonable method to proceed.
Thirdly, while the main target of a lot of this 12 months’s criticism about free speech and its limits in Britain has been on hate speech and offensive speech, the proscription of Palestine Motion and the 890 arrests which adopted it are a reminder that that is removed from the one restriction on freedom of expression which calls for, as Thomas Jefferson and Oliver Wendell Holmes famously insisted, “everlasting vigilance.” Nationwide safety, official secrets and techniques regulation, contempt of court docket—all these, in addition to “offensiveness” stay as authorized restrictions on free speech.
I’d add one ultimate comment. In these observations, I’ve been involved with legal regulation. But this isn’t the one space of regulation we have to be conscious of. The regulatory attain of the executive state additionally calls for our “everlasting vigilance.” Within the UK, broadcasting continues to be licensed—regulated—in methods US courts would rule to be opposite to the First Modification. Information reporters proceed to be underneath obligations as to “due impartiality,” for instance, whereas the like restrictions within the US have been lifted within the Nineties. Till 2025, no problem to regulatory rulings on broadcast political speech had been upheld within the British courts, however this 12 months, such a problem was lastly upheld—a belated signal, maybe, that UK attorneys are waking as much as the manifest unfairness of constant to impose strenuous licensing situations on broadcast speech which don’t apply to different types of media.
That cherished freedom—of speech free from licensing—is underneath renewed menace in Britain on the subject of the Web. Social media platforms and search engine providers at the moment are regulated within the UK, as they’re additionally within the EU, in ways in which haven’t any equal within the US. But the Westminster Parliament is just not content material. A Home of Commons committee really helpful in July 2025 that the brand new regulatory calls for of Britain’s On-line Security Act be prolonged, to curb but extra speech. The clear path of journey in Britain is that speech—notably on-line speech—is more likely to come underneath higher regulatory problem, not much less.
For all these causes, my plea can be that our American pals maintain holding our ft to the hearth. It was two Britons who wrote, within the 1720s, that freedom of speech is “the good bulwark of liberty.” 300 years on, within the 2020s, let Britain always remember the reality of it.
