OPINION:
Before this week, I had no idea who Graham Linehan was. Turns out, he’s the co-creator of the U.K. sitcom “Father Ted,” and an Irish comedian — who was greeted at Heathrow Airport when he arrived on Monday by five armed British police and arrested for social media posts that he sent out five months ago, while in Arizona.
The offensive content? He wrote on transgender issues, posting on X: “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.”
Some may interpret Mr. Linehan’s post as an off-color joke; however, British authorities interpreted it as a call to violence.
Mark Rowley, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, which organized Mr. Linehan’s arrest, defended it by saying U.K. law “dictates that a threat to punch someone from a group could be an offense,” and that “most reasonable people would agree that genuine threats of physical violence against an identified person or group should be acted upon by officers.”
The United Kingdom’s Communications Act 2003, the Malicious Communication Act 1988 and the Online Safety Act 2023 grant British authorities the ability to monitor social media postings and discern what speech constitutes criminal offenses.
The legislation, which was presumably written with good intentions — to protect civilians from online threats — has morphed the land of the Magna Carta into an authoritarian hellscape, where speech is monitored and people are fined and imprisoned for merely expressing views contrary to popular opinion.
More than 10,000 Britons have been arrested every year for offensive speech since 2021, according to custody data obtained by The Times, a British newspaper. Thousands of others are detained and questioned for sending messages that cause “annoyance,” “inconvenience,” or “anxiety” to others via the internet, telephone or mail, The Times reported in April. British police are making up to 30 arrests per day for offensive online messaging, The Times calculated.
“At what point did we become North Korea?” British parliamentarian Nigel Farage questioned, as he testified before Congress on Wednesday, warning U.S. lawmakers about the dangers of crafting legislation that limits free speech. “Well, I think the Irish comedy writer found that out two days ago at Heathrow airport. This is a genuinely worrying, concerning, and shocking situation.”
Mr. Farage urged U.S. lawmakers to condemn the British laws. He warned that the regulatory bodies in the U.K. could actively threaten to imprison American citizens and corporations for exercising their U.S.-protected Constitutional rights.
The U.K. Online Safety Act enforcer, Ofcom, has already threatened four American companies with penalties for violating its law. Lawyers representing two of those American companies, online forums 4chan and Kiwi Farms, filed a federal lawsuit last week in the District of Columbia, seeking protection from Ofcom’s attempt to impose U.K. speech laws on U.S. soil.
“American citizens do not surrender our constitutional rights just because Ofcom sends us an e-mail,” Preston Byrne of law firm Byrne & Storm, representing the American companies, said in the suit.
Ofcom responded to the BBC: “We are aware of this lawsuit. Under the Online Safety Act, any service that has links with the U.K. now has duties to protect UK users, no matter where in the world it is based.”
This is absolutely chilling.
Vice President JD Vance in a February speech in Munich warned European leaders of the Western threat from within, of their retreat from the democratic values they share with the U.S.
“In Britain, and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” Mr. Vance said, citing the case of Adam Smith-Conner, a 51-year-old army veteran who was arrested for the crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic, silently praying. When British law enforcement saw him, they demanded to know what his prayers were for. Mr. Smith-Conner responded that they were for his unborn son that he and his former girlfriend had aborted years before.
British authorities weren’t moved and found Mr. Smith-Conor guilty of breaking the government’s new “buffer zones” law, which criminalizes silent prayer and other actions that could influence a person’s decision within 200 meters of an abortion facility. Mr. Smith-Conor had to pay the prosecution thousands of pounds in legal costs.
“So, I come here today not just with an observation but with an offer … In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town,” Mr. Vance said. “And under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree.”
Many within Europe found Mr. Vance’s speech offensive. However, it was also a clarion call to the U.S. – we must never, as a nation, allow the culture wars to impede our Constitutional rights – no matter what side of the argument we’re on.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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