Nigel Farage claimed that the UK is in an ‘awful, authoritarian position’ today as he told US politicians that online safety laws are limiting free speech.
The Reform leader warned that Americans – including tech moguls – could face arrest at Heathrow over online content disliked by British authorities in the wake of the arrest of Graham Linehan.
Father Ted writer Mr Linehan revealed yesterday he had been detained at Heathrow over trans-sceptic tweets, sparking a row over police priorities and freedom of speech.
Mr Farage skipped Parliament’s first week back after its summer break to give evidence to the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, which is investigating the impact of the UK’s Online safety Act on US citizens.
‘He’s not even a British citizen, he’s an Irish citizen, this could happen to any American man or woman that goes to Heathrow but has said things online that the British government and British police don’t like,’ Mr Farage said of Mr Linehan’s detention.
‘It is a potentially big threat to big tech bosses and many others…
‘At what point did we become North Korea? Well I think the Irish comedy writer found that out two days ago at Heathrow Airport. This is a genuinely worrying, concerning and shocking situation.’
Mr Farage warned that the Online Safety Act ‘will damage trade between our countries, threaten free speech across the West because of the knock-on rollout effects of this legislation from us or from the European Union’.
However, Mr Farage’s version of events was challenged by Democrats on the committee.
Democrat representative Jamie Raskin branded him ‘a far-right, Putin-loving politician … free speech impostor and Trump sycophant’, adding: ‘He should go and advance the positions he’s taking here in Congress today, in Parliament, which is meeting today, if he’s serious about it.’
Mr Farage addressed a Republican-controlled HJC session entitled ‘Europe’s Threat to American Speech and Innovation’, which will ‘highlight how European online censorship laws – specifically the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act (OSA) and the European Union’s (EU) Digital Services Act (DSA)-threaten Americans’ right to speak freely online in the United States.’
‘It doesn’t give me any great joy to be sitting in America and describing the really awful authoritarian situation that we have now sunk into,’ Mr Farage said.
He added that he wanted to bring Lucy Connolly to Washington DC as ‘living proof of what can go wrong’ with free speech.
She was jailed for stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers in the aftermath of the Southport murders last year.
Of Connolly’s social media post that lead to her guilty plea and imprisonment, he said: ‘It was intemperate, it was wrong, but she removed it three-and-a-half hours later. Sentenced to 31 months in prison. She’s now out, having served 40 per cent of the time.
‘I wanted to bring her with me today as living proof of what can go wrong.
‘Sadly, the restrictions that have been put on her banned her from making the trip, which is a very, very great shame.’
Sir Keir used Mr Farage’s absence from PMQs to accusing him of running off to Washington to ‘badmouth and talk down our country’, adding: ‘You can’t get more unpatriotic than that’.
In response to a question about Reform UK’s opposition to the Online Safety Act, the PM said that the ‘honourable member for Clacton is not here representing his constituency, in the House he was elected to’.
