Sep 3, 2025 09:47 PM
(This post was last modified: Sep 3, 2025 09:54 PM by C C.)
https://www.politico.eu/article/nigel-fa...reform-uk/
EXCERPT: Back home, a furore over the arrest of Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan, detained by police at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of inciting violence with a series of social media posts about transgender people, is brewing. What happened to Linehan could “happen to any American,” Farage told the U.S. lawmakers.
The Reform UK leader also raised the case of Lucy Connolly, a mother jailed after pleading guilty to stirring up racial hatred with a social media post in the wake of a deadly knife attack on young girls in Southport, England last year. The case has similarly animated the right in the U.K.
Farage’s appearance will do little to calm a narrative — already being pushed by key allies of U.S. President Donald Trump — that free speech is under threat in Europe, and particularly in the U.K.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance stunned European leaders in February when he accused the continent’s governments, and what he called EU “commissars,” of being more interested in stifling free speech than in providing security for their citizens. Vance beefed with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the issue in the Oval Office, earning a rebuke from Starmer in full view of President Trump.
Just last month, the U.S. State Department issued an unflattering assessment of the U.K.’s free speech record. But some domestic opponents believe Farage is overplaying his hand — and amping up a complex issue in a bid to earn political capital.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Starmer accused the Reform UK leader of lobbying Americans to “impose sanctions on this country to harm working people,” adding that it “cannot get more unpatriotic than that.”
Ahead of the hearing The Sun newspaper reported Farage would call for the U.S. to punish countries that restrict free speech with diplomatic and trade penalties, though Farage denied suggesting sanctions “at all, in any way.” (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPT: Back home, a furore over the arrest of Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan, detained by police at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of inciting violence with a series of social media posts about transgender people, is brewing. What happened to Linehan could “happen to any American,” Farage told the U.S. lawmakers.
The Reform UK leader also raised the case of Lucy Connolly, a mother jailed after pleading guilty to stirring up racial hatred with a social media post in the wake of a deadly knife attack on young girls in Southport, England last year. The case has similarly animated the right in the U.K.
Farage’s appearance will do little to calm a narrative — already being pushed by key allies of U.S. President Donald Trump — that free speech is under threat in Europe, and particularly in the U.K.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance stunned European leaders in February when he accused the continent’s governments, and what he called EU “commissars,” of being more interested in stifling free speech than in providing security for their citizens. Vance beefed with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the issue in the Oval Office, earning a rebuke from Starmer in full view of President Trump.
Just last month, the U.S. State Department issued an unflattering assessment of the U.K.’s free speech record. But some domestic opponents believe Farage is overplaying his hand — and amping up a complex issue in a bid to earn political capital.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Starmer accused the Reform UK leader of lobbying Americans to “impose sanctions on this country to harm working people,” adding that it “cannot get more unpatriotic than that.”
Ahead of the hearing The Sun newspaper reported Farage would call for the U.S. to punish countries that restrict free speech with diplomatic and trade penalties, though Farage denied suggesting sanctions “at all, in any way.” (MORE - missing details)
