I’ve sat and followed what is happening with the media in the UK with interest. One of the reasons I started Politically Inclined was due to the erosion of journalistic integrity in the main stream media.
It started off with small things – politicians not being fact checked (well, let’s face it, only certain politicians), certain words being dropped (fascism, genocide, right-wing, racist) while use of other words increased (trans predators, woke, Asian grooming gangs).
At the same time that legacy media started to bend the knee to what they perceived the be the rise of the right wing (and they have to go where the audience is, because that’s where the money is), social media’s standards were being eroded too with racist, transphobic, homophobic and hateful comments allowed to run rampant on certain platforms under the banner of “free speech” protections.
But the thing is, as we’ve seen time-and-time again over the past year: the right wing are a very small, but very vocal minority.
Labour – a centre-left political Party won in a landslide in the UK 2024 general election and no matter how loudly Nigel Farage might shout, and no matter how often the BBC unfairly platforms Reform[1]Yorkshire Bylines: Is the BBC now the official mouthpiece for Reform?[2]The National: BBC bosses draw up plans to win trust of Reform UK voters over the Liberal Democrats or The Green Party, Reform Party UK Limited only has 4 MPs (it should be 6 but 2 have been suspended).
In Canada, what looked like it would be an easy win for The Conservative Party was turned around thanks to a wave of Anti-Trump sentiment allowing Mark Carney’s Liberal Party to form a government[3]BBC News: Why the Liberals won – and Conservatives lost. And in Australia, Labour also won a landslide victory in May 2025[4]The Conversation: Labor wins surprise landslide, returned with a thumping majority.
The United States lurch back to the right wasn’t a herald for a wider global political shift (although France came close after Macron’s disastrous snap election call) but with what you read and see in legacy media you wouldn’t think that was the case at all.
Free Speech Doesn’t Let You Say Anything and Everything
Free speech is generally, in most countries, protected.
That means that the Government can’t come along and dictate what you can and can’t say.
As long as it fall within what is deemed acceptable and legal.
In the United States, this right is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution.
In the United Kingdom, the right to free speech is protected under Article 10 of the Human Right’s Act which was brought into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998[5]Legisation.gov.uk: Human Rights Act 1998. I’ll pause here to say that I find it interesting that both the Conservatives and Reform UK Party Limited want to get rid of the Human Rights Act even though that’s what’s protecting their rights to free speech[6]The British Institute of Human Rights: UK General Election 2024 Manifestos and Human Rights â What do they say? but I digress.
And it’s important to note that this point that your right to free speech generally means that you’re protected from the government stifling your rights.
Private companies and employers will have their own rules and standards that they can apply to stop you harming their reputations. Social media platforms also have an obligation to apply the law so if you’re English and you post on Twitter for example, Twitter will have to apply UK law to your content even though they are a US-based company.
Remember: Just because you’re given the right to speech doesn’t mean you can say anything that pops into your head.
In the US, you’re not permitted to:
- Call to incite violence
- Threaten or intimidate people
- Be obscene in certain scenarios
- Produce CSAM
- Defame people via libel or slander
- Commit fraud through false advertising
- Certain direct insults to a person’s face
- Speech associated with criminal conduct e.g conspiracy, solicitation or aiding/abetting.
In the UK, the Human Rights Act (which is applicable across Europe too) is a bit more constrained compared to the USA in that Article 10 explicitly allows restrictions if they are ânecessary in a democratic societyâ for reasons such as:
- national security
- prevention of disorder or crime
- protection of health or morals
- protection of the reputation or rights of others
The UK also has restrictions around the following (which in some cases might be allowed in the USA):
- Incite hatred on grounds of race, religion, or sexual orientation.
- Publicly use âthreatening, abusive or insultingâ words or behaviour intended (or likely) to stir up hatred.
- Send âgrossly offensive, indecent, obscene, or menacingâ messages over a public communications network – this includes DMs, Text Messages, WhatApp and Social media posts
- Disseminate certain types of porn or (obviously) any CSAM.
- There are restrictions on media/public comment about ongoing trials to protect fairness of proceedings (which is what Stephen Yaxley Lennon fell foul of by breaching an injunction 10 times[7]BBC News: Tommy Robinson jailed for contempt of court)
- Police can restrict protests or demonstrations for safety, public order, or to prevent intimidation.
It’s important to note that while UK law might seem more restrictive than the USA, your right to voice political opinions are protected (in principle if they don’t fall foul of the restrictions listed above), you’re allowed to satirise or report and make art, but offensive or shocking speech can still be criminalised if it crosses into the statutory categories above.
In short: the U.S. protects almost everything unless itâs directly harmful, while the UK protects expression but with more carve-outs, especially around hate speech, public order, and offensive communications.
So for all of those saying “Free Speech Is Banned” in the United Kingdom?
It’s not.
You’re just not allowed to be a hateful racist bigot whenever you feel like it, and that’s not stopping your right to free speech, that’s following the letter of the law – a law that has been in place in the UK for over twenty five years.
The Lucy Connolly Crux Of The Problem
For those that aren’t aware, there was a riot in the UK in July last year which (some argue) was caused by comments made by Nigel Farage who claimed he was “just asking questions” (you can view a timeline of the events in my write-up: Letâs Call It What It Is: Theyâre Rioters, Not Protesters).
People took to the streets around the country and started to damage property – mainly in Asian and Muslim parts of towns.
Many people who didn’t take to the streets decided to take to their social media to voice their distrust hatred of immigrants and people of colour in the UK.
What Did Connolly Do?
One of those people was a childminder, and wife of a Conservative County Councillor, Lucy Connolly.
In what can only be described as keyboard-warrior bravado, Connolly posted a statement on Twitter.
I won’t show the original tweet for obvious reasons but here’s how it’s being reported by the press:
“Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the bastards for all I careâŠ
if that makes me racist so be it.â
The tweet was seen by 310,000 people in just over 3 hours.
She very quickly deleted it but the damage was done and she, along with hundreds of others who posted content similar to Connolly’s were arrested.
Now if you understood the section above about UK free speech laws I am sure you can see what the problem with her post is: it’s quite clearly calling inciting harm and publicly using âthreatening, abusive or insultingâ words or behaviour intended (or likely) to stir up hatred.
So the question is, should she have been allowed to have voiced this opinion under the auspices of free speech?
No! Of course not! She’s clearly breaking the law.
And if you look at the time she posted the tweet: 8.30pm on the 29th of July 2024, the riots were already in full swing with a police van being set on fire and 39 police injured.
And a week later, on the 4th of August 2024, rioters broke in to and set fire to two hotels being used to house asylum seekers in Tamworth and Rotherham[8]CNN World: Rioters attack hotels used to house asylum seekers amid worst UK disorder in years.
Now I am not saying that Connolly’s tweet was directly responsible – as I said she posted it and then removed it within 3 hours, however it’s easy to see why this tweet was so problematic given the mood in the country at the time.
So What’s The Problem? Connolly Broke The Law, Right?
Some free speech absolutists[9]Liberties: What Is Free Speech Absolutism? Who Is a Free speech Absolutist? Examples, Pros and Cons are saying that Connolly’s tweet is protected under her right to freedom of expression but UK law (and even US law) doesn’t work like that. Connolly clearly called for violence and while she didn’t specifically implicate a particular race the implications were clear, as was her implied threat to politicians (omited from the excerpt but she essentially called for the same to happen to the [Labour] government).
And while some agree that her tweet was in poor taste, they cite the removal as proof of contrition â but that’s now how the law works either! You can’t break the law, hide evidence of the crime, say “Whoops! My bad!” and expect to get away with it.
And further to this, while some people say that she’s guilty of posting hate content, they claim that she was denied proper due process because of a two-tier justice system[10]Central Manchester Chambers: New Sentencing Guideline: No, Itâs Not âTwo-Tierâ Justice where non-white and left-wing people are dealt with more leniently by the justice system, which I think the pro-Palestinian protesters who were arrested[11]BBC News: Police arrest 474 at Palestine Action ban protest or Just Stop Oil activists would roundly disagree with.
But what they seem to gloss over is the fact that Connolly pled guilty to inciting racial hatred after being told if she lost a jury trial she could face a maximum sentence of 5 years, after her guilty plea she was sentenced to 31 months (just over 2-and-a-half years) and she would have to serve 40% of that (which she has just completed) and would then be released on licence.
This sentence was in line with current guidelines which the judge must abide by, it wasn’t a figure that he just pulled out of nowhere.
Right-wing sources say that the judge threatened Connolly with a long period on remand before trial and no bail if she didn’t plead guilty but I can find no concrete proof of this, and we have to remember that thanks to Tory Austerity, over half the courts in the UK were closed[12]The Law Society: Court Closures and COVID-19 further added to court backlogs so it’s not surprising she wouldn’t be able to get a quick trial.
Also, any time spent on remand is deducted from your sentence due to time served and bail conditions can be negotiated after the not-guilty plea which was not a factor due to her pleading guilty.
Is Free Speech Dead In The UK Or Not?
If it were dead, then Connolly wouldn’t have been able to be interviewed on her release, she wouldn’t have been quoted in every major UK newspaper claiming she was a “political prisoner” and that even if she went to a jury trial it wouldn’t have been fair because of media coverage of her being biased.
And she most certainly wouldn’t have been invited to speak to the Trump Administration if she wasn’t being allowed to speak her mind (although it’s not clear if the terms of her licence release allow her to leave the country so we’ll have to see what happens there and how that works).
If free speech were dead I wouldn’t be writing this article and you wouldn’t be reading it.
So no, Free Speech Is Not Dead in the UK instead what seems to be sorely lacking in a basic understanding of the law, how it applies to what you say (in a multitude of ways) and general common sense as to why people can’t just go around saying what they want without facing any consequences at all.
Is the law perfect?
No! Most laws aren’t – they are often well behind technology and how society interacts using it and applying existing laws can be problematic.
But using that as an excuse be being allow to get away with inciting hatred?
Not an excuse, not in the slightest.
Katy is the editor-in-chief of FlippingHeck.com a blog about Self-Improvement, Productivity and Small Business Tips. When she’s not working, she enjoys gaming, making music and Reviewing Things.
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