In a significant diplomatic move, the U.S. government under Donald Trump has barred entry to two British nationals, including a prominent leader of a campaign group connected to senior Labour Party members, along with a former EU commissioner. The U.S. State Department alleges that Imran Ahmed, head of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and Clare Melford, associated with the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), attempted to restrict free speech on American social media platforms by influencing these platforms to penalize viewpoints they oppose.

Imran Ahmed, a Cambridge graduate currently residing in Washington D.C., could face deportation, while Clare Melford is set to have her U.S. visa revoked. Additionally, Thierry Breton, who previously held a key position as the European Commission’s chief technology regulator, is being targeted for his pivotal role in drafting the EU’s Digital Services Act. This legislation mandates social media companies to regulate content or face financial penalties. Recently, the European Commission levied a 120 million Euro (£105m) fine on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, for its misleading blue tick ‘verified’ badges, which were deemed insufficient in verifying users’ identities.

Reacting to the travel ban, Thierry Breton expressed his views on X, stating, “To our American friends: Censorship isn’t where you think it is.” In a series of pointed comments on X, Sarah B Rogers, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, accused Ahmed, Melford, Breton, and two German anti-disinformation advocates of imposing “extraterrestrial censorship of Americans.” She remarked, “For far too long, European ideologues have orchestrated efforts to compel American platforms to suppress American viewpoints they disapprove of. The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these flagrant acts of extraterritorial censorship.”

Imran Ahmed (pictured) once worked as a political adviser to the Labour Party, serving MPs Andy Slaughter and then-shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn, and led communications for Angela Eagle’s 2016 leadership bid. He founded the Centre for Countering Digital Hate in 2018 as a response to what he saw as a rise of antisemitism on the left and an increase in political violence including the murder of his colleague, Jo Cox MP, by a man partly radicalised online. Companies House records show Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff in Downing Street, served as a director from its inception until April 6 2020, two days after Sir Keir became leader of Labour.

In 2021, it published its ‘Disinformation Dozen’ report naming 12 people it said were responsible for around two thirds of vaccine misinformation during the pandemic, including US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. In 2023, billionaire Elon Musk launched a lawsuit against the CCDH after it published a report claiming X had become a breeding ground for hate speech and disinformation; the case was dismissed by a federal judge in March 2024. A leaked report later found the group had listed ‘kill Musk’s Twitter’ as one of its annual priorities. US Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Ms Rogers accused Clare Melford’s GDI of using ‘taxpayer money to exhort censorship and blacklisting of American speech and press’. Pictured: Clare Melford.