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.
Livia Tossici-Bolt, a retired scientist, was arrested for standing outside an abortion clinic with a sign reading, “Here to talk if you want.” (ADF International)
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.”
Police officers in Liverpool, England. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
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.
