That’s the question Nigel Farage, leader of Britain’s Reform UK Party, asked last week at a U.S. House hearing on the censorship of free speech in the UK. Mr. Farage, who is probably the most interesting person in English-speaking politics, asked, “At what point did we become North Korea?”
President Trump should immediately condemn the arrest of Mr. Linehan and the attempts by the UK and EU to censor what we say and write in the U.S.
Mr. Farage was speaking of the arrest at Heathrow airport of Graham Linehan, an Irish citizen, who was detained by five police officers for something he wrote and posted on the internet while he was outside the UK, probably in the U.S.
According to the Associated Press, “Linehan, who is well known for posts asserting that trans women are men, said in April that trans women were violent criminals if they used women-only facilities. He advocated hitting them if calling police and other measures failed to stop them from using such facilities.”
Which seems fairly reasonable considering that several U.S. fathers have taken such action in response to their daughters being subjected to men in women’s bathrooms or locker rooms.
What that means, of course, is that Americans can be arrested in the UK or the European Union for something they write anywhere, including inside the U.S.
This censorship is separate and apart from the EU’s war on U.S. tech companies, exemplified by the EU’s imposition of a fine of $3.5 billion on Google for the supposed antitrust violation of favoring its own advertising. President Trump had warned against targeting U.S. tech companies.
The UK’s Communications Act is the problem, and they are paralleled by EU statutes. The Communications Act of 2003 makes it an offense to send messages of a grossly offensive or indecent character, to send false messages to cause annoyance, or to use a public electronic communications network for those purposes.
The Linehan arrest is perhaps the first time that someone was arrested for something they wrote outside the UK.
What is “grossly offensive” is left to the determination of the police who seem to be more interested in punishing violations of the Communications Act than in arresting real criminals who commit real offenses. The Communications Act is, under U.S. law, void for vagueness under the Constitution. No such law could possibly pass muster in the U.S.
In the House hearing, Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), said (according to a report in the Washington Times) that laws such as these force social media companies to change or content-moderate (i.e., censor) their rules globally because of the impracticality of trying to enforce standards based on the user’s location. Jordan added that this means the laws affect “what we see, what we read, and what we say online here in America.”
This is obviously intolerable for U.S. news sources and commentators and not just because the UK law is both inapplicable in the U.S. and void for vagueness under our Constitution. We have the right to free speech under our Constitution and, contrary to what Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said last week, that right doesn’t come from government action. It is preserved by the Constitution which can only be limited by the government in extreme circumstances. (Such as shouting “fire” in a crowded theater when there is no fire.)
So are we supposed to self-censor? That ain’t gonna happen. What we say or write in the U.S. is not subject to any UK or European law. But what we say or write may make us subject to arrest in the UK or Europe.
There have been massive demonstrations against the government of Sir Keir Starmer in the UK. They point to the unpopularity of the Starmer regime and may cause it to be toppled soon. Illegal immigration and censorship top the list of complaints by demonstrators.
The new UK Home Secretary is Shabana Mahmood who won’t limit illegal immigration into the UK, one of her chief duties. A new deputy prime minister, David Lammy, another hyper-liberal, is also not going to even try to do that. All this points to a new UK government which — possibly under Mr. Farage — will do what it takes both to limit the censorship under the Communications Act and limit illegal immigration into the UK.
There is hope for the UK. Another UK government is badly needed and may result from the 2029 elections which are too far away to be of any help. Mr. Farage’s strength is growing and he may be able to push through a no-confidence vote to cause a new UK election sooner.
Our own 2028 elections will be here sooner than we think. The UK’s and EU’s attempts at censorship, as Mr. Jordan pointed out in last week’s hearing, were the subject of a letter from the EU to X owner Elon Musk that pointed to “harmful” content in violation of the EU’s Digital Services Act, which is also Constitutionally void for vagueness. Musk will certainly ignore the so-called “harmful” content in 2028. He — and we — cannot afford for him to do otherwise.
President Trump should immediately condemn the arrest of Mr. Linehan and the attempts by the UK and EU to censor what we say and write in the U.S. We have the fundamental right to free speech and it cannot be limited by the back-door maneuverings of either government.
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