Free speech in the United Kingdom has long been in free fall, with expanding criminalization and regulation of speech. Much of this effort is carried out to combat disinformation or radicalism. The subjectivity of such “Prevent” standards is evident in a new media report that officers are being trained to look for “cultural nationalism,” including those people who are concerned that Western culture is under threat from mass migration. Such concerns are now viewed as indicative of “right-wing terrorist ideology.”
Europe, like the United States, is showing a surge in political support for politicians seeking to limit and reverse mass immigration into their countries. That includes Great Britain.
The material is part of an online training course for British hospitals, schools, universities, and other public institutions that are expected to identify and report extremists to the government.
The training would subject a large number of British citizens to potential investigation as right-wing extremists. In 2023, a government report by William Shawcross concluded “populist conservative voices who have nothing to do with violent extremism” are often identified by investigators even though the overwhelming number of attacks committed in the UK were “Islamist in nature.”
There have also been warnings that by classifying “cultural nationalism” as an indication of extremism, the anti-terror scheme could be used to stifle public debate.
A Home Office spokesman insisted, however, that “Prevent is not about restricting debate or free speech, but about protecting those susceptible to radicalisation.”
That is a rationale already used in the UK to arrest those with dangerous thoughts or viewpoints.
For years, I have been writing about the decline of free speech in the United Kingdom and the steady stream of arrests, including in my book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.
A man was convicted of sending a tweet while drunk, referring to dead soldiers. Another was arrested for wearing 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.”
Nicholas Brock, 52, was convicted of a thought crime in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The neo-Nazi was given a four-year sentence for what the court called his “toxic ideology” based on the contents of the home he shared with his mother in Maidenhead, Berkshire. Judge Peter Lodder QC dismissed free speech or free thought concerns with a truly Orwellian statement:
“I do not sentence you for your political views, but the extremity of those views informs the assessment of dangerousness.”
Lodder lambasted Brock for holding Nazi and other hateful values:
“[i]t is clear that you are a right-wing extremist, your enthusiasm for this repulsive and toxic ideology is demonstrated by the graphic and racist iconography which you have studied and appeared to share with others…”
Recently, the UK effectively resumed blasphemy prosecutions and previously arrested a woman for silently praying to herself near an abortion clinic.
The training captures the potential chilling effect on speech where any publicly stated concerns over immigration and Western Civilization could lead to your being reported to the police. It reflects the cavalier approach to such speech regulations in not just the UK but throughout Europe. However, this European model is being promoted by many in the United States, including some who are calling on the European Union to challenge the United States over the regulation of speech.
As the new standard with Turley (since 2025), fascism is free speech, liberalism is dictatorship. 1984.
The British public voted for the current leftist-socialist-communist State they now inhabit in the majority. Please let them stew in it! Britons wanted this current madness in their nation. Hence, it’s their prerogative. Most Britons today, are uneducated, and severely brain washed by the BBC. Let them get drafted and head off to war in Ukraine and Gaza. Talk to a British person about geopolitics, the MIC, the current Roy@al Family or even the Royal’s child procurer Jimmy Saville. For the most part they are ignorant preferring to watch soccer, rugby, cricket and F1. What do we care and why should we as Americans give a crap about Britain. It’s over for Britain and about time too. However, the special relationship between MI6, MI5, the NS@ and Sea-Eye-@ will continue. America does NOT need Briton any longer. Good riddance.
Fair cop gov, almost in a nut shell. But with any sieve the valuables often get through.
Please don’t be so disparaging. Some of us ‘ere ‘ave been ‘ere for a long time, we’ve had to deal with Romano-Norse-European hobbits after all, we have survival skills… Y ma O hyd !
Interesting comments and replies to the initial article appear to descend to the usual bi-partisan heckling of others akin to the the illusion that those who you place your trust in, do not have your best interests at heart.
Why are these vampiric criminals ever employed ?
Answers on postcard.
this is the left’s wet dream in the US
In her scholarly article “Surveillance and Society,” Chiara Fonio cites Mimmo Franzinelli’s 2001 article “Delatori” (informers), below. I see little daylight between government efforts in the UK and elsewhere to enact and enforce anti-speech laws and the use of denunciations in Mussolini’s and Hitler’s surveillance societies. I cannot help but see parallels between now and the 1930s, but not for the reasons the press often cites. These efforts at criminalization of speech and thought are not coming from the right, but from the left. Extremes on either side of the ideological spectrum are dangerous, but the projection from the left and the use of the term fascist to describe the right is laughable…and frightening. Tick tick tick…
“More than half of denounced citizens lost their jobs,
were sentenced to confino or ammonizione or were arrested. This mundane
form of surveillance transcended social classes, occupational status and age
and was a common practice in all social contexts, from schools
(teachers reported on students or vice versa), to workplaces, from the
private milieu (i.e. delation against relatives or neighbors) to the church
such as ‘ecclesiastic delation’ that involved cardinals and priests. At times
citizens were denounced for trivial matters like discrediting jokes about the
duce (Franzinelli, 2001, 97). Thanks to this practice, not only could the regime
strengthen repression and maintain social control but it also had a better
understanding of public opinion on a wide range of topics. The ‘life of
others’, especially the ideas of ordinary Italians, became utterly important to
constantly monitor and explore public attitudes.”
To tell me the difference between denunciations (known as “delations”) in Mussolini’s Fascist Italy and this insanity in the UK, home to George Orwell. Everyone, except those who favor authoritarian regimes, should be terrified.
On Sunday evening Senator Ted Cruz shared a shocking video clip of L.A. Police Department cars on fire and wrote “this… is… not… peaceful.”
It was not from 2025, either. Cruz’s post on X implied the video clip was brand-new, but it was actually from 2020, one of many examples of misinformation proliferating amid the current clashes in downtown L.A.
Why would Ted Cruz lie like that? Why do all the republicans lie so much?
Check out LA today and then tell us about “peaceful protests”. Go drive on the 10…oh wait, you can’t it is blocked by your antifa goons.
I guess babytrump is unable to access today’s videos showing the police vehicles on fire, and plenty of people lovin’the destruction, filming it all with their cell phones, hoping to make a buck or two selling the clips to MEDIA
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ice-protests-turn-violent-in-downtown-l-a-local-officials-blame-trump/ar-AA1Gksjs?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=8145f7a59b2e4985dc00637efb72d893&ei=14
I didn’t say there weren’t protests, perhaps violent. But Cruz lied, Why?
What did Cruz lie about ? Was LA peaceful ?
And again – YOU have been caught lying repeatedly.
Maybe Cruz used a video from 2020, maybe not, not a big deal and NOT a lie.
I have never seen a night sky like Van Gogh’s “starry night” was van gogh lying ?
Words have meaning.
but why should I beleive YOU.
It is not like you have a record for truthfulness ?
I do not even beleive that Sen. Cruz said something just because YOU say he did.
I would not accept as True YOUR claim that Sen. Cruz said something that sounded exactly like Sen. Cruz just because YOU say he did.
Your not a credible source.
Provide an actual source if you want people to beleive you.
When you have done that a few hundred times without being aught in a misrepresenation – THEN maybe I will not reuire sources from you to beleive you.
Credibility is something you must earn.
It is also something you can easily destroy – and YOU have destroyed any that you ever had long ago.
Trying to reason with trumpsters like you is like trying to teach a slug to jump 10 ft in the air.
You completely miss the point. Cruz was using deception in his argument. This is never (NEVER) ok.
JT obfuscates facts all the time so I am not surprised his followers are incapable of independent thought.
trump bringing in the national guard was inflammatory. There was no need for that in a peaceful society, the LA cops were perfectly capable to handling the situation as it existed yesterday. But trumps purpose is to cause more violence so he can declare martial law. that is not what a good leader does. trump is an idiot, his followers are even dumber than him. A hard thing to believe but your response proves the point.
trump bringing in the national guard was inflammatory.
**********************
LOL, just like the summer of love in Seattle.
Trump is bring in the NG to stop the rioters from destroying the city.
Very shot memory baby!
2020, 2025 – Still lefties burning the country down because they are pissed off that They do not get to force their ideas on thee rest of us through government.
Is LA Peaceful right now ?
Unless it was at the time – Cruz is not lying.
Using an incorrect picture that acurately reflects conditions is not lying.
Do you have a source for the claim Cruz’s picture is from 2020 ?
It is not like you have not been caught lying over and over and over again.
It is NOT all republicans that lie so much – it is left wing nuts like you
This post would take forever if I listed all the lefts RECENT lies.
Trying to catch up with the Democrats
Obongo was “five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America” into Haiti.
Whoomp! There It Is!
Are those Mexican flags legal?
Censorship is back in vogue on the Turley blog.
Censorship has always has been in vogue here.
All the comments that fit, as they say.
Point taken.
Well, that got past the censor.
Yet here you are. So much for that comment.