The U.S. State Department has found that the human rights situation in the United Kingdom has deteriorated over the past year, pointing to the growing level of censorship from the government.
Britain’s “human rights situation worsened” in 2024, according to an annual report published this week by the State Department, which criticised the “two-tier” policing and the “increasingly routine” censorship of the UK public by the government in London.
The Trump administration analysis specifically pointed to the crackdown on speech in the wake of the mass stabbing of three young girls by a second-generation migrant at a children’s dance party last summer in Southport, following which widespread unrest and riots broke out across the UK.
The report noted that “local and national government officials repeatedly intervened to chill speech as to the identity and motives of the attacker (later identified as Axel Rudakubana, a British citizen of Rwandan origins).”
It went on to accuse London of pressuring social media firms, including American companies, to censor content deemed to be misinformation or so-called hate speech, a category of crime in Britain that is not recognised in the U.S., given its First Amendment protections.
“Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson threatened to prosecute and seek the extradition of those who ‘repost, repeat, or amplify a message which is false, threatening, or stirs up racial/religious hatred.’ The Crown Prosecution Service shared a video online stating that citizens should ‘Think before you post!’ and threatening legal consequences for violations of the law. After the attack, numerous individuals were arrested for online speech about the attack and its motivations, though in some cases charges were later dropped,” the report stated.
In addition to the response to the anti-mass migration protests and riots following Southport, the State Department also pointed to other “specific areas of concern”, including Britain’s legal apparatus to criminalise “hateful” or “offensive” speech, which it noted can result in citizens being fined or imprisoned, or both.
The report also criticised the recently implemented Online Safety Act, passed originally by the so-called Conservative Party in 2023, which allows for UK broadcasting regulator Ofcom to impose fines of up to £18 million or ten per cent of a social media firm’s global turnover if they fail to censor their platforms according to Britain’s standards.
While pitched to the public as a means of preventing children from accessing pornography or other extreme content, political speech has already been “restricted” on platforms such as Elon Musk’s X in the UK.
This has included footage from anti-mass migration protests and even a speech in the House of Commons addressing the scourge of predominantly Pakistani Muslim child rape grooming gangs.
Another area cited as concerning for free speech was the implementation of “Safe Access Zones”, which have been used to prohibit protests near abortion clinics. The restrictions have seen Christian activists arrested for merely praying silently in their own heads in the vicinity of an abortion clinic.
Such restrictions were specifically highlighted earlier this year by U.S. Vice President JD Vance in his landmark speech at the Munich Security Conference, in which he warned that the greatest threat to Western liberty in Britain and Europe came from within, from those who seek to stifle free speech. “In Britain and across Europe free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” he lamented.
The State Department report came as Vance has been in England for a working summer vacation, in which he has met with British, European, and Ukrainian officials. Upon landing in the country last week, the Vice President again stressed the importance of protecting the fundamental liberties which were fostered in Britain, and urged Western nations not to go down the “dark path” of censorship.
Despite myriad of concerns laid out by the U.S. government report, Downing Street echoed Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s message made during meetings with President Trump that Britain still respects freedom of speech.
Number 10 said: “Free speech is vital for democracy around the world, including here in the UK and we are proud to uphold freedoms whilst keeping our citizens safe.”
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