A boy only identified as “Fraser” is a 15-year-old supporter of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party. He found himself searched and arrested by four officers from the West Midlands Police at his home, locked in a cell, fingerprinted, subjected to a DNA search, and taken for a mugshot. The police then searched his bedroom and telephone.
All of this was over his joking about how Bennett dressed in public.
The Telegraph reports that Fraser joked about how the Tory councilor had attended a meeting in a T-shirt and shorts. When Bennett later attended a subsequent meeting in a suit, Fraser commented that at least he was no longer “looking like a rent boy”, a derogatory term for homosexual prostitutes in Britain.
Bennett admits calling the police and portrays himself as the victim of this child: “The police have not arrested for no reason… There were a number of posts that targeted me… It was unpleasant and I was targeted by a child I had no way of dealing with.”
It is only the latest example of the anti-free speech culture that has taken hold in Britain, where the government has continued to expand speech criminalization policies.
In my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss how free speech is in free fall in the United Kingdom, including the arrest of comedians and children engaged in playground taunts.
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.”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.
While most of us find Brock’s views repellent and hateful, they were confined to his head and his room. Yet, 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…”
Even though Lodder agreed that the defendant was older, had limited mobility, and “there was no evidence of disseminating to others,” he still sent him to prison for holding extremist views.
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.”
There remain, however, some in Britain who want to restore free speech. Lawyers for Fraser are planning to sue over wrongful arrest and false imprisonment. However, their client still remains in the criminal justice system. Many have suggested it was his support for Farage that drew the ire of this politician and the police.
Britain is a cautionary tale for our own country. While this speech would be clearly protected in the United States, there is a growing anti-free speech movement in this country that is aligned with European censors.
For his part, Bennett seems unrepentant in punishing his critics. He previously discussed his purpose as a public servant: “you’ve obviously got to find a unique selling point for yourself as well for people to buy into that. So the thing for me, is to find that unique selling point, find those single issues that matter to people.” He certainly has found his “selling point,” though it is tragically not “unique” in Britain.
As this case shows, censorship is the rage in Europe, and free speech is rapidly going out of fashion.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
It seems any UK people with the backbone to fight tyranny and take back their rights sailed to America in the early 1700s.
SECWAR Pete should get permissions from our higher-ups to put together a task force to head over to Formerly Great Britain – 10,000 or so backed by air power as needed should do the job – and free those poor bass turds from the tyranny that has managed to take root over there. What a shameful turn of events to have saved them from Hitler only to have them succumb to Islamo-Fascism abetted by traitorous natural-born English who – if there is any justice – should meet their maker at the end of a gibbet!
Their language, tailors and Royal Family are pretty much all they have left since the sun set so long ago on the empire upon which the sun never used to set.
“I was targeted by a child I had no way of dealing with.”
I really hope this kid hasn’t ‘learned his lesson’ and harangues Wolverhampton City Council, Simon Bennett for the rest of his days.
We should just award him honorary US citizenship so he has free speech and keep it up for the laughs. We need to hire him some comedy writers too. This could be a big career move for this talented kid!
Wolverhampton City Council, Simon Bennett’s got a scaredy and his big baby ego got ouchy by the big bad teenager bully! wahh! he wants wevenge! He’s not scared of bullies! Run to mommy Wolverhampton City Council, Simon Bennett you pathetic idiot.
A favorite quote about freedom of expression:
“The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race,” Mill wrote. “If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth. If wrong, they lose what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”
The politician:
https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/510b6a25-2056-481a-8dd7-ccfee0017c4a
Isn’t there a story about this subject? something about a boy, says the truth about how some muckity-muck is dressed? It was a king! I remember! the boy took the king down to the level of mere humans and pointed out how stupid he was. Now what was the moral of that story….
The US has withdrawn all its bombers from a base in England due to credible reports of attacks using drones from just outside the perimeter fence.
The Congressional Research Service reports 81 US aircraft have been destroyed or disabled.
U.S. personnel have been evacuated from bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
After Iranian strikes made many bases uninhabitable, troops moved into hotels and office spaces, some of them unprotected, and Iran began targeting those as well.
Tell me again how Trump has already won this war.
You should be locked up for advocating violence against children. No free speech for you either
I will if you tell me how you think Iran has won this war first.
GOOD! I say lock these kids up in the Tower of London Dungeon. In the U.S. to, the more Detention Center the better. If you’re under 18 years old and wondering around doing nothing with no plan in life, then lock’em up. These no good kids with their snappy yakking about what they think when they haven’t even lived long enough to know what life is about need discipline. These Brats are getting off to easy without so much as a paddling. A wooden spoon across their hinny is a good start, then drag them off to the Dungeon!