In my book, The Indispensable Right, I discuss how free speech is in a free fall in Great Britain, where officials continue to crack down on an ever-widening array of viewpoints. This week, that ignoble record worsened with the arrest of Jon Richelieu-Booth, who told the Yorkshire Post that he was arrested for posting a picture on the networking site LinkedIn of himself holding a shotgun at a friend’s homestead in Florida.
West Yorkshire Police allegedly warned him about the post and told him to be “careful” about what he says online and “how it makes people feel.”
They later came back and arrested Richelieu-Booth over allegedly possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, and a charge of alleged stalking over another picture of a house on his profile. He attempted to show that the photo was taken in the United States, but the police brushed him off.
While the police eventually dropped the case, it dragged on for months, with multiple visits from officers. However, according to The Telegraph, Mr Richelieu-Booth has been charged with a public order offense over another social media post. The media reported that he was not informed of the contents of that picture.
The West Yorkshire Police spokesman issued a statement: “Police received a complaint of stalking involving serious alarm or distress, relating partly to social media posts, several of which included pictures of a male posing with a variety of firearms which the complainant took to be a threat.”
None of this is in the least surprising. For years, I have been writing about the decline of free speech in the United Kingdom and the steady stream of arrests. A man was convicted of 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.”Last year, 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…”
After the sentencing, Detective Chief Superintendent Kath Barnes, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE), warned others that he was going to prison because he “showed a clear right-wing ideology with the evidence seized from his possessions during the investigation….We are committed to tackling all forms of toxic ideology, which has the potential to threaten public safety and security.”
The Times of London reported in April that police are making around 12,000 arrests per year over online posts.
The years of criminalization and censorship have created a culture of intolerance in Great Britain toward opposing views. Every group is now on a hair-trigger to call the police on those who espouse conflicting values. At the same time, British police departments now expend considerable personnel and resources as speech police.
It is not clear what figures like William Hulton would face today with famous British oil paintings featuring shotguns, including some still hanging in British museums and presumably terrifying citizens.
For free speech groups in Great Britain, the situation could not be more dire, where even silently praying can lead to your arrest. Indeed, expressing support for Western cultural concerns is viewed as evidence of “right-wing ideology.”
Speech in the UK now becomes entirely on “how it makes people feel.”
1 Adam 12 got the call. Shots fired by the 2-11 suspect. We have a standout. Suspect has a shotgun.
One of the top selling pop psychology books published in the 1970’s was Wayne Dyer’s “Your Erroneous Zones”. It taught people resilience. One way was making the completely common sense point that any harm that results from what another persons says isn’t the words that are said; they are simply air vibrations. The harm is the is the way the person’s mind hearing the words chooses to process and react to the words (i.e. vibrations of air).
Brilliant! I saw Dr. Wayne Dyer in Kalamazoo Michigan (Wings Arena) on book/speaking tour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Dyer
Your Erroneous Zones:
https://tinyurl.com/2p8y68h2
Apparently besides having the wrong pictures you can also go to prison in the UK for having the wrong music.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg4n5k2lq7no
I doubt his collection included the Horst Wessel Lied. Maybe, as someone below remarked, he also had Gregorian Chants. Christian themed and clearly subversive of UK ‘values,’ though I like them. Even the Church of England seems to have abandoned christianity.
Russia seems safer, more Christian, and more free than England these days.
Young
Nuts!
At Worcester Crown Court on Thursday, the 48-year-old was sentenced to 40 months in prison for each offence, with the terms to to be served concurrently.
Dustoff,
Yes. They have gone insane. Trump should take away their nukes. No nukes for nuts.
I saw that the EU is thinking of stealing impounded Russian assets. I hope we aren’t dragged into any troubles that may cause. Again..nuts!
Young: HA! You have created a protest banner equal to “No Kings” and “Not My President!,” etc.
“No Nukes for Nuts”
Love it.
Lin,
Thanks!
Forget KKK, the slogan du jour (and your copyright) is NNN!
I think what’s really cool about Trump is how he plays 4D chess. He’s so laser focused on stopping drugs from entering the country he pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, a drug cartel associate, cuz Trump wants to let him go and monitor him. Trump will prolly put a tracker thingy on Hernandez so that when he goes to a cartel meeting, then Trump will have the CIA storm in and seize everyone. Genius.
He’s so laser focused on stopping drugs from entering the country he pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez
We see your laser focus on diverting to BBBBUUUTTTT…. MUH TRUMP – while Obama threw the southern border wide open and allowed the Mexican drug cartels and their accomplice Hernandez to do their drug and child/sex trafficking of women and children they invited here to go on disturbed.
And I’ll see your pardon of Hernandez and raise you the Obama/Biden pardons of murdering terrorists, drug dealers, cop killers, and blood soaked child rapists on murders awaiting execution on federal death row.
Your move, you pathetic Democrat Marxist Useless Idiot novice at Democrat propaganda.
Quote: “we will be left with Muskrat Love (the worst song in history) and Gregorian chants”
Forget being left with Gregorian Chants in your playlist … I recently was reprimanded for enjoying Gregorian Chants to promote meditative calm, since, according to the complainer, it “gave her headaches” ‼️
“We are committed to tackling all forms of toxic ideology, which has the potential to threaten public safety and security except Islam.”
Quote is now more accurate.
This interview puts the situation into focus:
George Galloway Speaks Out on Being Forced Into Exile After Criticizing Ukraine War
George Galloway has been elected to parliament seven times, and on many issues is one of the most conservative politicians in the U.K. But when he criticized the Ukraine war, he was detained by British police and had his property confiscated. He’s now in exile.
By: Tucker Carlson – TCN ~ Nov. 29th 2025 • 38 mins
https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-george-galloway
(I watched the clip.)
Culling out the opposition [voices], one by one….
But to what desired end, I cannot fathom.
Two hundred fifty years ago the British tried similar nonsense in their American colonies, and look where that got them.
What exactly happened 250 years ago? Obviously you do not know.
There is no evidence that the British government formally forbade speech in the American colonies as a blanket policy. However, British authorities did enforce laws against seditious libel, which criminalized speech critical of the government or its officials.
The UK is looking more and more like Orwell’s 1984.
No it does not. Reread it.
No it does not. Reread it.
Far too late for you Democrat commie useless idiots to attempt to rewrite Orwell’s “1984”, that you’ve been using as an operations manual.
Straight from the novel, the government agent to Winston, who he has imprisoned while he subjects him to brainwashing, telling Winston: “The revolution will be complete when the language is perfect”.
The British are the Orwell Poster Children! Dumb and Dumber 3 is being filmed onsite at 10 Downing St everyday! Just splice all the clips together at the end of Comrade Starmer’s term and you have a complete movie! If another socialist gets in just start filming Idiocracy 2!!!
What is happening to freedom of expression in the UK cannot honestly be described as a “decline”; it is the catastrophic and comprehensive gutting of any such liberty.
DJT – “It was just an MRI,” he said. “What part of the body? It wasn’t the brain because I took a cognitive test and I aced it.”
What sort of IDIOT goes around telling everybody how they aced a cognitive test?
You, I’m guessing.
Isn’t this an article about the UK?
Anon has a UK IP.
What does this have to do with an article about the thought Gestapo in the UK?
P’SSST, the article was about free speech in the UK. Try to follow along.
About posting a selfie with a shotgun, we’re not given enough context. It’s likely that there was no intent to intimidate anyone. Though much less likely, it’s possible that there was an ongoing conflict and specific intent to scare a perceived adversary.
That’s why juries are needed to resolve such cases…they can demand to understand the context, and apply common sense and community standards of what is acceptable. These should be civil lawsuit juries, not criminal courts.
Let’s be realistic. Speech, and we’re talking only about public speech, can be used nefariously — to deceive, to defame, and to silence opponents via intimidation and threats. Sometimes it’s a personal or political enemy who aspires to destroying you through infowarfare. Or, it could be foreign enemies intent on destroying your entire society. Or, it could be antisocial gamers competing with others in their chat room to see what they can get away with.
If your position is “you can’t do anything about it” because of “free speech”, then you are thinking irresponsibly about upkeep of your culture and standards of behavior. The slide toward radical individualism is hopefully undergoing a backlash — there is no substitute for the ability of the group to set limits on the individual.
Good one. Thankfully we have cancel culture and don’t need cops harassing online commenters.
The UK is learning the hard way that cops are the wrong approach. A much better one is to go back to having human editors moderating published content, and applying common sense judgment. In the US, this means repealing Section 230, so that social media platforms have the same editorial responsibilities as print publishers and TV producers.
Alright, but the problem is you have a human involved.
If Section 230 is repealed, this, and most other social media platforms will be shut down, because of the undue burden, and potential liability the moderation would place on the operators of the platform.
I like things the way they are.
So in the US… censorship of others thoughts and opinions posted on social media platforms, to align with the Thought Police? We had 4 years of unconstitutional government censorship on social media under the Biden regime. No thank you.
Here’s a radical thought; let’s not go down the path of of establishing Thought Police. We don’t want to go down the rabbit hole of modeling the United States after the UK. They’re beginning to sound like they’re living in North Korea, not the United Kingdom! We have a Constitution.
Unconstitutional censorship. Not at all. It was the social media companies.
This is ridiculous nonsense once again. The burden of proof is actually on you to follow up, not almighty guberment. What is “radical individualism?” Sounds like a term spawned from neurosis.
“. . . the ability of the group to set limits on the individual.”
In other words: Mob rule.
Apparently you did not read (or understand) _To Kill a Mockingbird_ or _The Scarlet Letter_.
In other words, British Police Go “Full Choke” on free speech.
“warned others that he was going to prison because he “showed a clear right-wing ideology”.
Does anybody go to prison in the UK who show a clear left-wing ideology?
Yes.
Wow. What clickbait. The case was dropped…
You wrote about a dropped case in the UK instead of the news of a US war crime over the weekend.
Yes we should be reading about the 2011 bombing and killing of two US citizens accused of terrorism, one a 16 year old minor, without due process and on foreign soil that also reportedly killed two other people.
Obama violated the US constitution, the Bill of Rights and another country’s sovereignty and has never been held accountable for those war crimes. Glad to hear you bring them up again.
Yes he did. That does not mean that it didn’t occur again in 2025.
All the more reason to hold the administration accountable, so that the next president (if we have another) will not continue to commit war crimes.
IF we have another one? You crack me up. I guess you didn’t hear all the claims from the left wing nut jobs–Schumer, Booker, Carville–that they will retake the WH and Senate in in 2026 and 2028 and from that point they will add two more states (four more Senators) so they can then pack SCOTUS and forever control the control. Sounds pretty scary coming from the so-called defenders of democracy. Oh that pesky Constitution! Here is all is packaged neatly for you:
https://butchmazzuca.com/in-wine-theres-truth
Why would it ever be brought in the first place?!
Not just clickbait, read the article. A night in jail, charges for posting a picture that disturbed some total pansy aholes, four total police visits to his home. The story is noteworthy. Britain needs a total overhaul. Make England British Again.
So
He was arrested questioned repeatedly
Over the course of months
You would not support arresting people for being black if the charges always get dropped
“So, he was repeatedly questioned and arrested over the course of several months.
You wouldn’t support arresting people just because they’re Black if the charges were always dropped.”
This kind of thing happens all the time in the U.S. The DHS has detained citizens and dropped the charges, often as a way to punish people through the process rather than through actual charges. It’s sometimes a form of retaliation for protesting or interfering with their unlawful arrests.
Please remember this ideology is going to be turned toward those quoting the bible!:
“We are committed to tackling all forms of toxic ideology”
We are definitely in the midst of this timeline!:
https://sumofthyword.com/2016/10/04/the-rapture-of-the-church-is-after-the-tribulation/
It already is! They’re arresting anyone who is just standing on the sidewalk silently praying! So is someone is waiting for the crosswalk light to flash green, and they look like they may be silently praying, they can be arrested.
Britain is now full-on fascist. They don’t hide it. They don’t pretend otherwise. British rulers are as authoritarian as their fellow National Socialists, and things aren’t getting better.
If you visited the UK, you’d get a more balanced, accurate sense of life there. Granted, not having a 1st Amendment is messing things up for some citizens and the police / courts. It’s up to Parliament to correct this.
I’m defending the UK as having a self-correcting system of govt. Common sense will prevail, though it may take some time.
It will be too late. Needless to say, people who visited Germany in the mid-1930s, particularly for the Olympics, thought it was pretty neat. However, for people viewed by the government as undesirables or political opponents, life was anything but hunky dory. Visiting a country does not give one a full picture.
Fascism is a left wing ideology and has always been one. It was lied about in WW2 to keep Stalin happy as an ally.
Both are socialist. One wants to own the means of production, one wants to control the means of production. Both want to export their ideology world wide. Both chose a group to be the eternal enemy and put all blame on it. Both use repression, prisons and political executions to control the people. There is very little difference and they are minor in the two ideologies.
Not that you would know what a fascist is, so try this on for size:
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement that emerged in early-20th-century Europe, characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, and the subordination of individual interests to the perceived interests of the nation or race.
Seems you’re only focusing on the “far right” in that definition of fascism. Maybe read the definition in its entirety and see that it’s the last administration with its leftist policies that match the crucial part of that definition. Censorship, lawfare, corruption. Fascism in history has been part of right wing nations in the last century. Seems there’s been a switch and it’s far left administrations that are practicing fascism in modern history. Granted, the Nationalism doesn’t fit into the leftist doctrine. But that’s because the leftists are trying to remake our country into a Socialist country where the individual must adhere to the Authoritarian government dictates.
Only?
The definition is wrong
It is another example of the left engaged in 1984 language control
Fascism is a form of socialism
There has never been a fascist leader or government that was not socialist
“Not that you would know what a fascist is, so try this on for size:”
Everything in government
Nothing outside government
Nothing against government
Benito musollini
The founder of fascism
Further every fascist leader ever has called fascism a form of socialism
Fascism is a form of socialism PERIOD
It typically is a nationalistic form
Though that is not a requirement
But socialism is a requirement for fascism
Yup.
Did you know that Mussolini invented fascism and the Fascist party after getting booted out of the Socialist Party of Italy? Fascism is simply the flip side of the same coin and most people today are clueless what being a fascist truly means.
British society cannot it seems be trusted with firearms. See @ 2:36 above.
🤣 Perfect analogy.
Wish we had such laws in the good ole USA.
This is a parody account, right?
“Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.” (Th. Jefferson)
Which translates: One big Mac and large fries. And a big coke.
I thought for sure it translated as “One toke over the line sweet Jesus, One toke over the line.”
I’ll post it in pig Latin next time
Wait, there were no McD’s in VA in Jefferson’s time. Stop spreading lies.
But there were Burger Kings.
Re: TJ quote “Malo pericuslosam . . .” . There is a part of that letter which actually bears more relevance here:
“Societies exist under three forms sufficiently distinguishable.
1. Without government, as among our Indians.
2. Under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence, as is the case in England in a slight degree, and in our states, in a great one.
3. Under governments of force: as is the case in all other monarchies and in most of the other republics.
To have an idea of the curse of existence under these last, they must be seen. It is a government of wolves over sheep. It is a problem, not clear in my mind, that the 1st condition is not the best. But I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population. The second state has a great deal of good in it” — Thomas Jefferson Letter to James Madison Jan. 30, 1787
It is time to stop abusing categorization, but rather to seek solutions – this is better done by addressing the issue rather than attacking the individual?
Fortunately for Americans, we cannot enact such laws, as they are contrary to the supreme law of the land – the Constitution, and bless it, its creators and initial amenders, of which latter an ancestor of mine made one, for its threatened (by such as you) guarantees.
But we have cancel culture. More effective.
Not yet but if the Dems get control of the executive and legislative branches you can kiss our constitutional, capitalist democratic republic goodbye. They make no secret of their intent to create a permanent one party government if they gain power again.
And Trump ain’t? Don’t buy into your scenario. Get out of your bunker every once in a while.
Both parties wish for one party control
Only dems are willing to act lawlessly to achieve it
Only dems in power infringe routinely on the rights of citizens
“ Only dems are willing to act lawlessly to achieve it
Only dems in power infringe routinely on the rights of citizens”
Ever since Trump took office, Republicans have been doing it consistently.
I agree. But, with respect, I’m compelled to make a correction. We do not have a “Democratic Republic”. We are a CONSTITUTIONAL Republic.
Tubwater,
Well said and I agree.
You are absolutely correct. I posted an article link further up, but here is it again. And it isn’t supposition from the terrified middle and right of the ideological spectrum. The Dem leadership–however feckless they are–made it quite clear they intend to create a one-party system after 2028. Now, tell me how that is “saving democracy.”
https://butchmazzuca.com/in-wine-theres-truth
Only so long as SCOTUS sticks to the plain language of the text and the executive doesn’t choose to ignore SCOTUS
Yes, so we could be intolerant fascists, too. Good idea.
Why? In order to allow the *”forces of evil” to accellerate the descent of the US into a UK/EU-style scheisshole?
* socialists, communists, globalists, Davosians, WEFbergers, zionists, and Democrats
The term “scheissloch” is German and translates to “shit-hole” in English, often used as a vulgar expression to describe a place or situation considered unpleasant or undesirable.
Looks like you missed German 101 in the concentration camp.
I hope that is an attempt at sarcasm?