When hundreds of thousands of Britons joined the recent Unite the Kingdom rally, the government of Keir Starmer wanted them to know that they were being watched for possible arrest. By deploying facial recognition systems and invoking the United Kingdom’s anti-free speech laws, Starmer’s government made it clear that it would not tolerate anything it considered hateful or xenophobic, on the heels of its losses to Reform UK in council elections.
Under its Online Safety Act, the government removed posts from social media platforms such as TikTok, including statements about Reform UK’s immigration policies.
Among those impacted was Reform UK’s shadow home secretary Zia Yusuf who reportedly had “two videos removed from TikTok—one for a user report under the UK’s Online Safety Act and another for hate speech.” They were later restored.
Starmer’s government also reportedly prevented speakers from the rally from entering the county, citing concerns they might “incite” the crowd.
The Times reported last year that the government was arresting 30 people a day for speech crimes.
In the last two decades, free speech protections in the U.K. have been eviscerated. The criminalization of speech has expanded exponentially as individuals and groups call the police to silence those who criticize them or advocate opposing views.
Even silent prayer or “toxic ideologies” can lead to arrest. Expressing concerns over Western cultural values is now treated as an admission of “right-wing ideology,” warranting investigation. A few years ago, a neo-Nazi living with his mother was found to have a room filled with hateful symbols and material.
Judge Peter Lodder dismissed free speech concerns over the defendant’s possessions with a truly Orwellian flourish: “I do not sentence you for your political views, but the extremity of those views informs the assessment of dangerousness.” Calling the defendant “a right-wing extremist,” Mr. Lodder said the contents of his room were evidence of “enthusiasm for this repulsive and toxic ideology.”
One of the most notorious cases has been dropped with a belated apology. Last year, I wrote about how Graham Linehan became the latest comedian to be arrested as part of the global crackdown on free speech.
The co-creator of the U.K. sitcom “Father Ted” was arrested at London Heathrow Airport, allegedly over several social media posts criticizing transgender activists. The posts were not jokes, but political commentary.
Now, the Metropolitan Police has issued an apology that he should not have been detained by five armed officers at Heathrow Airport in September 2025. It took five months, but the Met Police apologized for how his case was handled and vowed to learn from the experience.
Met Police Inspector Matt Hume declared, “I apologize to Mr. Linehan for the shortcomings in this investigation. The Met Police remains committed to lawful, proportionate policing and to learning from failings when they arise. I accept that the service provided was not acceptable and recognize the distress and impact this matter has caused Mr. Linehan.”
The problem is that it is not clear why they concluded that they made a mistake but the laws are so sweeping in their language that the police can act in the most arbitrary and ideological fashion.
There will be no discipline of those who ordered the arrest, or apparently, further explanation of why this case, as opposed to hundreds of others, was viewed as improper.
The most that Hume would offer is that, while insisting that the arrest was entirely lawful, it was “flawed” because officers focused on the transgender criticism “rather than the alleged incitement to violence,” according to The Telegraph.
Linehan correctly noted in a post to X that “This, from the ‘apology’ I received from the police, doesn’t sound like an apology.” That is because it is not a real apology. It is an effort to spin and discard a high-profile controversy while reaffirming the very policies and laws that allow for such abuses to occur in the United Kingdom.