In its hit song London Calling the Clash warns:
“London calling to the faraway towns
Now that war is declared and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls”
According to a new report, the British punk rock band may have been prophetic in 1979 in a way never foreseen in its apocalyptic lyrics. This week, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said that the police will not necessarily confine its arrests for speech crimes to London or even the United Kingdom. Rowley suggests that Americans and other citizens could be extradited and brought to London for online postings.
London has been hit with days of violent protests over immigration policies, including attacks and arson directed at immigration centers. This violence has been fueled by false reports spread online about the person responsible for an attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event that left three girls dead and others wounded. Despite false claims about his being an asylum seeker, the culprit was an 18-year-old British citizen born to Rwandan parents.
News outlets and pundits have condemned the false reports and the violent protests. However, the police are moving to arrest those who are repeating false claims or engaging in inflammatory speech. Rowley is warning that they will not stop at the city limit or even the country’s borders.
He warned “We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you.”
Rowley was asked by a reporter about the criticism by Elon Musk and others over the response of the government. Musk noted a video of someone allegedly arrested for offensive online comments with a question, “Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?”
Pundits and politicians in the United Kingdom have called for an investigation or the arrest of Musk for merely speaking publicly on the controversy.
The reporter said that high profile figures have been “whipping up the hatred,” and that “the likes of Elon Musk” are involved in the online speech. She then asked what the London police are prepared to do “when it comes to dealing with people who are whipping up this kind of behavior from behind the keyboard who may be in a different country?”
Rowley told the reporter:
“Being a keyboard warrior does not make you safe from the law. You can be guilty of offenses of incitement, of stirring up racial hatred, there are numerous terrorist offenses regarding the publishing of material. All of those offenses are in play if people are provoking hatred and violence on the streets, and we will come after those individuals just as we will physically confront on the streets the thugs and the yobs who are taking — who are causing the problems for communities.”
The message is chilling because free speech has been in a free fall in the United Kingdom as well as other Western countries. I discuss this trend in my new book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.
The decline of free speech in the United Kingdom has long been a concern for free speech advocates. A man was convicted for sending a tweet while drunk referring to dead soldiers. Another was arrested for an anti-police t-shirt. Another was arrested for calling the Irish boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend a “leprechaun.” Yet another was arrested for singing “Kung Fu Fighting.” A teenager was arrested for protesting outside of a Scientology center with a sign calling the religion a “cult.”
We also discussed the arrest of a woman who was praying to herself near an abortion clinic. English courts have seen criminalized “toxic ideologies” as part of this crack down on free speech.
The London police are now deputized to stop or arrest those engaged in speech deemed inciteful or inflammatory. Last year, the police stopped a man from walking in the street because there were pro-Palestinian protesters and his presence would be inciteful because he was “quite openly Jewish.”
The United Kingdom has a myriad of laws criminalizing speech with vague terms allowing for arbitrary enforcement. For example, Public Order Act 1986 prohibits any expressions of racial hatred, defined as hatred against a group of persons by reason of the group’s color, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins.
Section 18 of the Act specifically includes any speech that is “threatening, abusive, or insulting.” An arrest does not have to be based on a showing of intent to “stir up racial hatred,” but can merely be based on a charge that “having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby.”
The country has also targeted social media companies to force them to censor users for speech deemed threatening, abusive or insulting by the government.
These ambiguous laws are written on the same “trust us, we’re the government” rationale. The police insist that they will use their discretion wisely in what speech will result in arrest.
Ordinarily, one would expect the U.S. government to push back on the suggestion that these laws could be used to arrest and extradite its citizens for the use of free speech. However, the Biden-Harris Administration has been a proponent of censorship and blacklisting for years. At the same time, leading Democrats have called for European-type laws to be adopted or enforced against U.S. citizens for their views on social media.
We previously discussed how Democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton called on foreign countries to use or pass censorship laws to prevent Elon Musk from restoring free speech protections on Twitter.
The effort of these politicians would allow free speech to be reduced to the lowest common denominator as countries export their anti-free speech laws. When Clinton called upon Europeans to censor Americans, this is precisely what such actions would look like. These foreign countries could force Americans to curtail their speech under the threat of ruinous financial penalties or even arrest.
As some of us predicted, these laws have expanded as the desire to silence others becomes an insatiable appetite. Advocacy groups have pushed the police to crackdown on their critics. Now, the threat to “throw the full force of the law at people” may be extended to the people of other nations.
We could all soon be dancing to that same tune:
“London calling, see we ain’t got no swing
Except for the ring of that truncheon thing”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster).
Isn’t this one of the main reasons that we shot at them in 1776? What has happened to britain?
If instead of two tier policing, Rowley enforced the Law without fear or favour, his constables may not have been a target of the protestors. The majority of whom were simply protesting peacefully.
What They Have Done
They have allowed them to Flip-N-Flip Housing into completely unaffordable realm
Flip in Ownership, Flipping Mortgages, Flipping Insurance Flipping Property Taxes.
No way to undo it.
The Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Debt Bubble KaBoom. All Bubbles for that matter, the play is the same.
They let these Player do it time-after-time, knowing that that the Pyramid will implode.
Knowingly counting on the Bailout & Bankruptcies to come.
Banks – The Billionaire Heads of the Banks Flip their internally manufactured shares in for cash,
then issue more internally manufactured shares to themselves to replenish the hoard.
Politicians have the easiest job , Spending the Peoples money for Nothing. It’s not theirs, They aren’t accountable, and it’s easy for them to make money on the side for doing favors.
The Military – really, do we really need a War, all that expenditure for what – nothing The Zero Sum.
Yet They are all so reputable.
Americans are controlled by the very system they so deeply believe in. They are sold that every generation.
So to are other Countries Democracy does not equal Responsibility. For the People, of the People, for the Planet of which we live.
Free speech is the low-hanging fruit that the authorities will use to explain riots, violence and hate. But “incitement” only comes after decades of bad government policies have turned a once-compliant population into an angry, frustrated mob. Clamping down on free speech in the hope that the underlying problems will go away is delusional and will only add fuel to the fire. But governments who created these problems never admit their errors, and instead deflect blame onto the people: They riot because terrorists have free speech and incite them to violence…so we must take away their right to free speech. Just once I’d like to hear a politician talk seriously about the reasons for citizens’ anger, and then devise a plan to address those grievances.
“But “incitement” only comes after decades of bad government policies have turned a once-compliant population into an angry, frustrated mob.”
If you have a population primarily composed of incompetents, indolents, and other freeloaders, even good government policies (which, in most cases, means no policy at all) will be opposed by angry, frustrated, violent mobs. Massive “free lunch” programs are very easily started, but damned difficult to end peacefully. The elites are doing their very best to turn the US into such a society at this very moment.
Gee this sounds like the King back in the 1770’s when he decided to take all smugglers (alleged) in the American colonies and force them to London to face charges there instead of in colonial courts where the “crimes” apparently occurred. I think that is one of the reasons that the Constitution stipulates that one must be tried in the venue of where the alleged crime occurred. Of course that can be Abused like they do it in New York. Just a reminder that New York City was the most Royalist (tory) City even as far back as the Revolution.
I would sincerely like to see the US Federal Government try to extradite an American to London for “mispeaking” on the Internet. I also don’t think that arresting Mr. Musk would go well if the UK tried to extradite him or tried to arrest him when he visited. SpaceX launches about 80-90 % of tonnage going to space in the world (China Included). The British might never get anything out of the UK. Waiting for time on the Eurospace rockets might be forever. On the other hand it might kneecap US space also. Amazon Space (Blue Origin) and Boeing are not exactly lighting a fire in efficiency and tonnage either. Just ask the astronauts on the ISS who went up there for an 8 day tour and are likely there till next year. Sounds like “Gilligan’s Island in Space”. I think I’ll hum that today while at the state fair.
A smart administration might open its doors and allow all peaceloving and free speaking Brits an expedited move and citizenship in the US. Throw open the Ports from Maine to Corpus Christi. We would already understand them, more or less, but they would have to learn to look right instead of left. Both a political and traffic suggestion.
Only a certifiable idiot would try to unjustly imprison someone who has a significant amount of long range rocket power at his disposal. I very much doubt that Musk would do such a thing under even extreme provocation, but consider that the most difficult engineering and construction parts of a rocket-powered weapons delivery system are in the rockets.
“. . . we will come after those individuals . . .”
Isn’t that cute.
Some Brits still believe that we’re merely uppity Colonists.
A word of advice: Bring a very powerful military. America is not the Falkland Islands.
In that eventuality, the UK would issue a warrant, and the FBI would be sent to the door of whomever was exercising his or her 1A right to the displeasure of the UK. If that happened, in many cases there would be some blood shed, not all of which would come from the speaker. The UK has essentially become a Muslim-majority nation, and free speech and other liberties that we have long treasured are not accorded much value in those. This is what internationalism has in store for all of us.
*SENATOR KEELEY
Comrades, Elon Musk has a fatwa. It appears the ayotollah isn’t the only one issuing them. A rose by any other name.
Timpon Walz has openly avowed socialism, comrades.
Welcome to hell. Back to Musk, he has a bunch of money that he doesn’t deserve and I can steal it is more like it.
The Olympics is another hellpit. Thanks Jolly for the ad.
Mark Rowley is nothing but a punk.
That is all he is.
Mark Rowley is the thug and the yob provoking hatred and violence.
Mark Rowley is a canary in a coal mine. His placement in power and political survival is a test created by central authoritarians, undoubtedly some of whom are US-based.
Hey, Rowley, 🖕. ……Molon Labe!
Rowley and those on the left might need to grasp that Like the Floyd riots in the US this is not driven by the turth of the details of the triggering event.
The incident at the Taylor Swift concert is just a trigger.
Brits like people in the US and Sweden and all over the world that are responding negatively to forced mass immigration and the problems such as rising crime that this brings.
That the narative of the triggerring event is atleast partly inaccurate is irrelevant.
Does Rowley belive that everything would have been honky dory but for some minor errors regarding this particular crime ?
Brits are angry about a broken immigration system – that Brexit was supposed to fix.
They are angry about an unequal system of justice in which people who say the wrong things go to tail, and people who committ violent crimes do not.
People are anrgyu begause their law enforcement system is not working.
People are angry because not only has Rowley not done his job – but clearly he does not even know what that job is.
John Say,
This is the problem the leftists in government like the UK, Sweden, Germany, France and others have. They have their agenda, ignore their actual citizens concerns like safety, and then when their citizens do speak out against, they resort to calling all those citizens far-right wing, racists, etc.
They do not care for their citizens concerns. They care more about their agenda.
Rowley can go pound sand…
Or do his actual job and protect people from violence rather than hurt feelings and words.
Ah, The Clash! Perfect for a Saturday morning read. At least Strummer doesn’t have to worry about being arrested for climate change denying misinformation:
“The ice age is coming, the sun’s zooming in
Meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin”
No analogy is perfect, but the London police trying to extradite people from other countries over their tweets does remind me of the US’s ante-bellum Fugitive Slave Law. And that certainly turned out well for all concerned.
Also interesting that once a Left government makes its wishes known the British reporters are just as servile and obsequious as their American colleagues. “Enemies of the people,” indeed.
Only those on the left are stupid enough to beleive that but for inconsequential errors in reporting of one of many acts of violence that this would not have happened.
The British left like many western nations are sitting on a powder keg of their creation because they are trying to impose their broken values on the people by force rather than enforce the actual law.
Brits thought they had fixed this with Brexit – but the left in Britian did not listen – they tried to Thwart the return to the rule of law not man that Brexit demanded, now they are seeing the consequences.
Rowley is a compolete idiot if he beleives that but for a few internet posts this was avoidable.
The last two times the British tried to subjugate Americans (1776-1783 and 1812-1815) it didn’t work out too well for them. What makes Commissioner Rowley think it will work any better for them if they try it again?
Two words, Biden-Harris.
Oh, the ignorance. 1776 was an insurrection. Washington and all the “Founding Fathers” were insurrectionists in the true sense of the word, not the Democratic distortion of it. One can argue that they were justified (though some were motivated by the worry that King George was very pro-abolition of slavery…) but they were nevertheless guilty of treason. You try to hide that by calling it the War of Independence, not the Revolution but it remains an inconvenient truth.
As for 1812, where to begin. Britain was fighting a world war versus the tyranny of Bonaparte, a tyranny that too many US politicians failed to recognise, wrongly conflating the arguably high principles of the US Revolution with the unarguably debased and murderous reality of the French Revolution, and then glossing over Bonaparte’s exploitation of the Revolution to become an evil autocrat. Turley’s great hero, the utterly incompetent President Madison, thought he get away with stabbing Britain in the back and invade Canada. That failed miserably; the US secured the lakes against a small British squadron of minor vessels, but were defeated on land by small but much better trained and led British forces.
USN ships scored some early successes against weak Royal Navy ships (the only frigates initially deployed were elderly, worn-out vessels no longer fit for the war against Bonaparte(, but quickly came a cropper when confronted by good RN ships, as HMS Shannon demonstrated in beating the theoretically more powerful USS Chesapeake. New England’s maritime trade was destroyed, with thousands of captured US sailors crowding Canadian prisons. Washington was burned down. The Royal Navy not only liberated large numbers of slaves, but then gave them uniforms and muskets, and as Marine auxiliaries they ran riot up and down the East Coast. USS President very, very stupidly tried to put to sea and within a few hours became HMS President. A text book case of a captain’s pride and ego throwing a way a good ship to no end.
The war ended because Britain was winning it but had never wanted the conflict, wanted to concentrate on securing the victory over Bonaparte, and was willing to let the USA save a little face.
I know the US teaches 1812 differently, but the idea it won is as laughable as the idea that Vietnam was a victory.
Who said that Vietnam was a victory for the US?
“Oh, the ignorance. 1776 was an insurrection.”
Someone doesn’t grasp the difference between “insurrection” and “revolution.” So much for your country’s legacy of the OED.
“As for 1812, where to begin.”
How about at the beginning, instead of mid-stream (where you started).
That war was lit, years earlier, by British support for Tecumseh’s war on America. The Brits had a thing for allying with Indians against America.
I guess you didn’t feel like mentioning the pre-1812 British embargoes of American’s maritime trade and your country’s kidnapping of American sailors.
“. . . the idea [America] won [the War of 1812] is as laughable as . . .”
Your defeats at Pittsburgh and Baltimore, then your total routing at New Orleans would say otherwise.
Your attempts to rewrite American-British history are utterly dishonest.
“Oh, the ignorance. 1776 was an insurrection.”
Oliver, you might call the American Revolution an insurrection early in the war, but as it progressed, it became more of a revolution. Certainly, when the treaties were signed, one had to agree it was a revolution.
Well, you know what Franklin said – “rebellion is always legal in the first person”.
Besides – I notice you skip right over the part where it was a successful treasonous insurrection
“The Law” has become a weapon of war against free people everywhere. It no longer represents Justice. As a result, “The Law” doesn’t deserve respect or require obedience. That belief is destined to bring civil disobedience to our streets everywhere.
The fundimental problem is the lefts misunderstanding of what law is.
Law is NOT a system of values imposed by force from our betters from on high. It is a sytem to reflect the values of ordinary people that those we put in power are obligated to enforce in return for the power we give them.
Law is bottom up not top down. It is discovered not concocted and imposed.
Thopse on the left are free to try to persuade all of us that their values should be adaopted by society – but the are not free to try to change peoples values by force.
England has come a long way from the land of the Hyde Park soapbox, as it betrays the legacy of the Scottish Enlightenment.
London use to be a nice place to visit or go on business. The woke, Globalist, EU, etc have ruined it. The same for all of Europe.
I doubt it.
It can’t happen here
It can’t happen here
I’m telling you, my dear
That it can’t happen here
(Frank Zappa)
As Americans, we can tell the British police force to POUND SAND, and to perform an act of oral gratification on themselves.
If Harris gets elected her administration would honor an extradition request from His Majesty’s Court if the target of the arrest is a political opponent of the party of government, the Democrats. What’s to stop Wray’s FBI from arresting, and Garland extraditing, any influential political figure, like Trump, to New Scotland Yard?
The courts would not allow it. A writ of habeas corpus requires the government to release the prisoner.
Come January 21, 2025 – who is going to tell the British to “pound Sand” When they try to extradite americans for their speech on the internet ?
The courts, that’s who.
Not to worry. Extradition treaties allow only for crimes that are defined as crimes in both countries signing the treaty. Since we have a First Amendment that supersedes a treaty obligation and guarantees that free speech is a protected right in the U.S.. Therefore, no American will ever be subject to a British extradition request as long as we still have a First Amendment. Although we speack the same language and like each other a lot, it wasn’t always this way between the U.S. and U.K. To be sure, there are differences and laws like the one being enforced in London are the types of laws one might expect in a kingdom, not a democratic republic where government protection is for the people, not the monarch.
Of course you’re correct about extradition only for common crimes but I suspect that to get around that pesky first amendment issue, the “crime” would be incitement of violence or something along those lines. If they can make it work here, I’m sure it’ll work over there. Just ask DJT.
When have those on the left in the US cared about such things as the law or constitution ?
Exactly. JJCs song has nice lyrics, but will the thugs dance to it? Doubtful.
They may not care, but they can’t defy a writ of habeas corpus.
If Trump wins the election on November 5, is sworn in as president on January 21, his administration should look at imposing sanctions against countries that don’t respect basic human rights, especially the right to speak freely without fear of prosecution.
Sam: I know you mean this in the finest tradition of American political philosophy but in order for us to claim sovereignty for ourselves we must respect the sovereignty of others. Using our economic might to control the affairs of another nation, no matter how noble a purpose we may have, is problematic. The principle of sovereignty, i.e., of supreme authority within a territory, is a pivotal principle of modern international law. We surely have the right to decide with whom we trade and have commerce and that might accomplish the same thing for the same purpose. If, for example, we halted trade with China because it does not honor human rights, we would immediately see our markets and primary companies cease business, our people would be unemployed at rates not seen since the Great Depression, and China would likely find some nefarious method to get even. Since at least WWII, the philosophy has been to engage our friends and enemies in ways that use our economic strength to win over the people of hostile regimes. Has it worked? In some cases, it has and in others it has not but I’d rather deal with these issues in the marketplace than at the business end of a gun.
True, but at some point you have to account for the fact that some other people (including many of our own “leaders”) do not believe that the marketplace and the gun (and theft) are seperate. I hope we can keep them apart, but I have my doubts given the proclivity that we have had since at least the end of WWII to reach for the gun as a primary tool of business and diplomacy/politics.
Anonymous – while I generally agree with you that american principles and values should be spread through the world by the american people by example, not by the american government through coercion – that is litterally the thesis of the Book “The Ugly American” from the 50’s.
At the same time – much of what you fear is already happening. We are in the midst of a massive deglobalization.
The US is no longer able to assure free trade throughout the world – something I would note that we did through the force of our government and sea power. And that we did in return for global political influence. Today we have the most powerful navy in the world.
A single US Carrier battle group – and we have 13 is more powerful that all but 6 of the militaries of the world . But that same navy is no longer structed to or capable of protecting global trade.
China is in severe political demographic and economic trouble. The disruption you fear is inevitable. The US is not as far into a program of reducing its dependance on China as we ought to be, but we have been moving in that direction for some time. We are seeing more manufacvting in the US, we are seeing more in Mexico and Canada, We are seeing more in other pacific rim nations.
We are seeing LESS US dependance on China, on Europe, on the Mideast. We are seeing a global re-alignment of power.
Arguably alot of this is good. But wherther that is true or not – it is happening.
Many conflicts that we see are consequences of those global shifts – not causes.
The US is shifting its focuis away from Europe and the mideast and Afrtica to the western hemisphere and Asia.
Increasingly the problems of Russia, Europe and Africa – are problems for the Europeans.
Well, Sam, that’s pretty much all of them. Sanctions on the entire world outside of our borders won’t work very well.
I think before we impose sanctions upon other countries that don’t respect freedom of speech, we might need to get our own house in order by weeding out the massive censorship programs where the govt is using private industry to censor what it couldn’t do on its own.
To the Tower, off with (it’s) head !
Trump will have far more than enough abuses of constitutionally guaranteed liberies in this country to keep him fully occupied for four full years, without trying to address abuses elsewhere.