Three US Congressmen who travelled to Britain for a meeting chaired by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage have issued a stark warning about Britain’s “frightening” free speech troubles.
Speaking on GB News, they told Katherine Foster limitations on expression could spill into the US, hence their determination to head across the pond.
The group is comprised of three Republicans and fronted by Jim Jordan.
Asked what brought him to Britain, Jordan, from Ohio, said: “The first amendment to the Constitution.
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“We’re concerned about free expression in the United Kingdom. We’re primarily concerned about the impacts your laws could have on American citizens.
“American citizens enjoy five fundamental freedoms. Your right to practice your faith, your right to assemble, your right to petition the government, free press and free speech.
“The most important fundamental is the last one, our right to talk. If you can’t speak, you can’t practice your faith, you can’t share your faith, you can’t petition your government and you can’t criticise your government and you don’t have a free press.
“That’s the most fundamental right we have as free citizens. When the government infringes on that, like we are seeing with the Online Safety Act and the Digital Services Act in Europe and there’s spillover on American citizens, that is a concern.
X / NIGEL FARAGE |
Farage chaired a meeting with the trio
“We had a witness last year in Congress, a journalist from Canada who made a great statement. She said ‘free expression is the hallmark of Western civilisation.
“‘The ability to debate, the ability to argue and have votes and settle disputes that way because the alternative to that is frightening’.
“We think this is critically important and that is why we’re here.”
Fellow Republican Congressman Scott Fitzgerald, from Wisconsin, commented on the Online Safety Act which has sparked a row in British politics with Labour minister Kevin Kyle suggesting Nigel Farage is ‘on the side of people like Jimmy Savile’ for opposing it.
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“The American companies we have been speaking to have laid out the case their legal teams have been battling on many fronts now on that issue of censorship and trying to curtail what they are putting up online.
“You will see a continued fight step by step to make sure this doesn’t creep into America.”
Kiley said the Online Safety Act is part of the “rising tide of censorship” in the West adding: “You can’t have a robust liberal democracy without protections for freedom of speech.”
Jordan had further criticism for the British Government, lashing out at police action for social media posts.
“You look at recent history and it seems to me the biggest purveyor for misinformation is the government. Look at Covid, everything the Biden Administration told us about Covid turned out to be wrong”, he said.
“It’s typically the government who gives inaccurate information. We don’t want harmful material getting to kids but there’s a big difference between that and speech criticising the government, for goodness sake.”
The new online safety rules came into force last week with the aim of preventing children from seeing harmful or inappropriate content.
Tech firms are required to put stricter checks in place for people accessing age-restricted content and taking quick action when harmful content is found.
Firms could face fines of up to £18m or 10 per cent of their turnover if they fail to comply.
Labour insist the measure will help protect children as they navigate the internet, while some have criticised it as an attempt to shut down free speech.