Free Speech Is Already Dead in Great Britain

There has never been a First Amendment in Great Britain, although for a couple hundred years the Common Law was understood to give broad latitude in allowing the expression of opinion.

Not so much anymore. Several “Public Order” laws passed since 1986 have increasingly restricted speech to the point now a person can be arrested for offending others, particularly those in protected classes. This has resulted in some shocking cases, such as the arrest of an autistic girl for blurting that a female police officer “looked like her nan,” who is a lesbian. She was separated from her parents after being dragged out of her home by police and questioned for hours. She was eventually released after having been traumatized and berated.

The hits keep on coming, as ordinary (and not so ordinary) Britons keep getting hauled in for questioning and occasionally arrested for saying, tweeting, or even liking tweets that offend the wrong people, particularly (as you can guess) transgender people.

I ran across one example that demonstrates the problem perfectly. A “gender critical” lesbian who makes the startling claim that there are only two sexes and suggests that there needs to be an “LGB without the T” movement got hauled in for questioning based on her Twitter activities.

alt alt

“Is there any lawful excuse why you made these tweets?”

Read the tweets. They are potentially illegal to write in Britain.

As you can see with the Remembrance Day protests in London the police started making arrests early in the day, and as of the time I write this every single person arrested was a counterprotester who was “breaching the peace” by opposing the pro-Hamas protesters, some of whom were chanting (in Arabic, I admit) that Jews needed to be killed. All of them were calling for the elimination of Israel and also calling for “blood.”

Another Hamas cosplayer leads activists in chanting of "With blood with steadfastness we'll free Aqsa" in front of an ad for Call of Duty pic.twitter.com/r6Ix2ni1mq
— Harry's Place (@hurryupharry) November 11, 2023

Some hate speech is more awful than other forms. Calling for the death of Jews and the eradication of their state is just fine and causes no “alarm of distress,” while pro-Israel chants are hateful and worthy of arrest.

I said that the Veterans were cautioned by Police. They were. This is an example of activists using @CommunityNotes to distract from the event.
— David Vance (@DVATW) November 5, 2023

London police have privately acknowledged that with regard to the pro-Palestine protests, it is simply easier and safer to control the English counter-protestors, so that is where they put their efforts in order to keep conflicts from arising. Let the barbarians scream their chants and suppress the pro-Western/pro-Israel protestors.

I can almost understand that, given their remit to preserve the peace. I don’t approve, but I understand it.

These are not people who are "integrating" into "British values". They’re people who view their ethnoreligious affiliation to the Muslim world as primary. https://t.co/Ye4dySy7SC
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) November 9, 2023

But how can you justify the policing of speech on Twitter? Nobody is being threatened or harmed, and there is no danger of physical discord. People are merely expressing opinions and they are getting terrorized by the police.

People like J.K. Rowling are largely immune to harassment by the police, although Rowling has invited them to arrest her for saying the same thing others are. They have declined, because she is J.K. Rowling and has over a billion dollars. But the little guy or gal? They are easy to intimidate.

British people wearing commemorative pins and medals are accosted and assaulted by “Palestine” firsters in London.
Guess which side the police feel comfortable shoving around and threatening with arrest? pic.twitter.com/r8pyHFhmDC
— Raheem. (@RaheemKassam) November 11, 2023

If you think that the First Amendment protects us, you are half right. The police won’t show up at your door in the US in the way they do in Britain, but the government does work to stifle your speech rights through third parties it funds, such as the Stanford Internet Observatory, which pressures social media companies to suppress speech.

Free speech is not only being attacked; the censors are winning through intimidation, claims of misinformation, and even “malformation” which means true but inconvenient to the Narrative.

Europe has largely fallen to the censors. America is in danger of doing so.

Offence of sending letters etc. with intent to cause distress or anxiety.
(1)Any person who sends to another person—
(a)a [F1letter, electronic communication or article of any description] which conveys—
(i)a message which is indecent or grossly offensive;
(ii)a threat; or
(iii)information which is false and known or believed to be false by the sender; or
(b)any [F2article or electronic communication] which is, in whole or part, of an indecent or grossly offensive nature,is guilty of an offence if his purpose, or one of his purposes, in sending it is that it should, so far as falling within paragraph (a) or (b) above, cause distress or anxiety to the recipient or to any other person to whom he intends that it or its contents or nature should be communicated.
(2)A person is not guilty of an offence by virtue of subsection (1)(a)(ii) above if he shows—
(a)that the threat was used to reinforce a demand [F3made by him on reasonable grounds]; and
(b)that he believed [F4, and had reasonable grounds for believing,] that the use of the threat was a proper means of reinforcing the demand....

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/27

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.