Donald Trump sent US officials to meet British pro-life activists over concerns their freedom of speech has been threatened, The Telegraph can reveal.

A team from the US state department spent days in the country and interviewed campaigners to feed back to the White House.

The five-person team met with five activists who had been arrested for silently protesting outside abortion clinics across Britain.

Washington launched the fact-finding mission after becoming concerned about the erosion of free speech in the UK.

The visit is the latest sign of the Trump administration’s willingness to intervene in domestic British affairs.

The diplomats from the US bureau of democracy, human rights and labor (DRL) travelled to London in March in an effort to “affirm the importance of freedom of expression in the UK and across Europe”.

Led by Samuel Samson, a senior adviser in the state department, they met with officials from the Foreign Office and challenged Ofcom on the Online Safety Act, which is thought to be a point of contention in the White House.

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X and an adviser to Donald Trump, is among those inside the administration said to be concerned about online regulation in the UK.

At the same time, the delegation quietly met with a handful of anti-abortion campaigners at an event held at a “nondescript” office block, The Telegraph can reveal.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, Rose Docherty, Adam Smith-Connor, Livia Tossici-Bolt and Father Sean Gough, a Catholic priest, described to the visiting diplomats their experiences of being detained while silently praying.

Mrs Docherty, a 74-year-old grandmother, became the first person to be arrested and charged under a new law which creates buffer zones outside hospitals and clinics providing abortions in Scotland. She was arrested outside Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow in February.