The White House has said it is “monitoring” the case of Lucy Connolly in an escalation of free speech tensions with Sir Keir Starmer. The Telegraph has more.
State department officials are examining the treatment of Connolly, the wife of a Conservative councillor, who was jailed for 31 months over a social media post about the Southport attacks.
Judges threw out an appeal brought by the 42-year-old last week, meaning she will not be released before August.
Campaigners raised her case with Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, as part of a wider effort to challenge what they regard as draconian hate speech laws across Europe.
A spokesman for the state department said: “We can confirm that we are monitoring this matter.
“The United States supports freedom of expression at home and abroad, and remains concerned about infringements on freedom of expression.”
It is the latest sign of Donald Trump’s willingness to intervene in domestic British affairs amid a growing transatlantic rift over the protection of freedom of speech.
On Saturday, the Telegraph revealed Mr Trump sent US officials to meet five British pro-life activists over censorship concerns.
The diplomats from the US bureau of democracy, human rights and labor (DRL) travelled to London in March in an effort to “affirm the importance of freedom of expression in the UK and across Europe”.
They met with officials from the Foreign Office and challenged Ofcom on the Online Safety Act, which is thought to be a point of contention in the White House.
Since then, Connolly’s case has raised eyebrows of Trump administration officials who question her conviction and the length of her sentence.
British politicians who have criticised her sentence were praised the White House for its intervention.
Suella Braverman, the former Home Secretary, said: “Lucy Connolly is effectively a political prisoner and should be freed immediately. She made an ill-judged tweet, soon deleted.
“That the US is investigating this case is a sad indictment of the dire state of free speech under Two-Tier Keir. Free speech is in crisis under Labour.”
Connolly expressed her outrage on social media platform X hours after Axel Rudakubana murdered three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club in Southport.
She posted: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f—ing hotels full of the b——s for all I care, while you’re at it, take the treacherous government politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these [Southport] families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist, so be it.”
Connolly deleted the post less than four hours later, but by then it had been viewed 310,000 times. She was arrested on Aug 6th following widespread riots across the country over the stabbing attack, and later jailed for 31 months.
Connolly, who has no previous convictions, also sent another tweet commenting on a sword attack, which read: “I bet my house it was one of these boat invaders.”
Last week, the Court of Appeal judges said they did not accept that the original sentence for inciting racial hatred was “manifestly excessive”.
The judges also said they did not accept that Connolly had entered her guilty plea without fully understanding what it entailed.
Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, said: “In recent months, shoplifters with hundreds of prior convictions have avoided prison. A domestic abuser with 52 prior offences got off with just a suspended sentence, as did a paedophile with 110,000 indecent images of children.
“And yet Lucy Connolly has received a 31-month prison sentence for an appalling – albeit hastily deleted – message on social media. How on earth can you spend longer in prison for a tweet than violent crime? This crazy disparity will only fuel perception that we have a two-tier justice system where the law is enforced selectively.”
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader and an ally of Mr Trump, said: “Our American Republican friends seem to care more about free speech in the United Kingdom than our own government.”
Lord Young, the general secretary of the Free Speech Union, which helped fund Connolly’s appeal, said: “This is the third national humiliation in a week under Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership.
“Has it really come to this? That the US Government now has to monitor human rights abuses in the United Kingdom?
“Britain is rapidly becoming the North Korea of the North Sea.”
Worth reading in full.
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Woke capitalism — the last step in the left’s ‘long march through the institutions’?
https://www.carolinajournal.com/opinion/woke-capitalism-the-last-step-in-the-lefts-long-march-through-the-institutions/
The essay linked above explains exactly what is behind the drive for corporations to trim their sails in a leftward direction.
This is why you see ESG box tickers like Nike Unilever, Bud Light etc take a temporary hit to their sales because they realise that in the long run they won’t be able to do business in the Woke Capitalist world that is being created. ———It is very difficult to keep a track of all the companies indulging in this wokery and then to not buy stuff from them, but the people have the power to eliminate these parasites by doing exactly that. Do you really need a Nike top or a jar of cream from Dove? No you don’t. But as with the climate change tyranny people are way too busy with work and family life to thoroughly investigate every issue so they end up taking what they get. Which is what Social Justice, wokery and ESG decides you can have. As someone once pointed out “All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to remain silent”, ———–And ofcourse that applies to all of the other 926 genders as well.
Yes,people are too busy with work and family life to investigate and push back against the tide of wokeism but they could refuse to vote for any establishment party at the very least.All are fully signed up for the woke agenda. Mogg, Mcvey and Co can raise concerns but at the end of the day what they say doesn’t make a jot of difference to the direction of a corporate owned and funded party who will do exactly what Larry Fink tells them to do.
The big takeaway from this is to:
“Pull any investments you have that are managed by the “big three,” (Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street) and refuse to give your consumer dollars (and pounds) to companies espousing values you abhor.”
Never voting for establishment parties is equally as imperative and effective.
Unfortunately it appears that pretty much ALL the UK based Investment companies have signed up to the Communist ESG rubbish or this UN demand published by one such company …
“We are committed to responsible investing and are signatories to the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment.”
Never heard of B Corp until this article. ESG, Stonewall, B Corp – all coordinated, planned, directed. Part of the greater plan and 2020 revolution to destroy everything – annihilate genders which will deracinate the Church and family, trans-pans everything means fewer babies, more drugs, more profits, more compliance to the transhuman agenda. I work in a woke investment bank corp and most of the people don’t support it, but what can you do. Had run ins with smiling HR over the fags, queers and trans love but few speak out.
I am optimistic that this bullshit ends – evil usually implodes due to immorality, inconsistency, outright idiocy and illogic. But it needs to be confronted.
What needs to be tackled is the fundamental problem which is the obsession with doing good.
It’s a ridiculous ambition which goes against human nature, like pretty much all left wing projects
A far more realistic ambition is to avoid doing harm to others. That is all civilisation needs. A commitment from the vast majority to do their best to not be assholes.
After that each person can pursue his own prosperity as he wishes.
Attempts to do well for others are almost always fake, ruses for one’s own benefit and generally do inadvertent harm.
The idea that we should force everyone to do good is probably one of the most subversivey evil ideas of our times.
Spot on 👍👏
I generally agree with that view, although I was interested to read (many years ago) ‘La Chute’ by Camus , in which he talks about the philosophical duty we all have (in his view) to do more than merely avoid harming others. But only a bit more! To see a crime taking place, to be able to prevent it, but to do nothing – is a dereliction of our duty towards others (in his view – and I think in mine); but to dedicate oneself to improving the lot of others, when usually those others are not in imminent danger in the first place, does indeed smack of sentimentality and virtue-signalling do-goodery – preconceptions, blueprints of the ‘ideal society’ (to be imposed on society regardless of the actual, physical terrain with which ordinary people are confronted) – you know, that stuff so beloved of the Guardian and the BBC… Once embarked on such a journey, one’s whole world view shifts, and people who were simply minding their own business now become monsters of indifference, to be pointed at, vilified, hounded, and portrayed as the concrete reason for Guardian Man to take his do-goodery a step further – pushing even more of the previously innocent into the ‘evil’ camp. And the process goes on and on, as we’re now seeing every day as never before. For this reason Leftism is always pernicious; but of course in its earliest stages, to young or simplistic minds, it seems to offer an obvious path to a meaningful way of living life. Finally, Leftism exerts its greatest attraction when traditional sources of spiritual guidance are absent; and which institutions are more absent today than the church, the police, the schools and universities, and the greatest of all – the nuclear family, made up of one man and one woman in that quaint old arrangement formerly known as ‘marriage’…
it needs to be confronted. Indeed. I have gone through the latest 1000 UK companies and there are a dozen whom I have used or use as suppliers. I will be writing to the CE of each as to why they will be no longer – they do not share my values and those of my company. Lets see where that takes us.
Woke is Marxism. Know the enemy.
Here’s an excellent presentation of this thesis by Dr. James Lindsay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6rk1mYiOAw
Lindsay’s the man.
” so that certain beliefs – such as a belief in the reality of biological sex – would lose their ‘protected’ status.”
Enough of this CRAP. Biological sex is FACT. Hence the concept of “protected belief” WRT sex is complete NONSENSE.
Innit.
Things have go to the point in the breakdown of our society that my wife and I wander round the house cursing roundly. Indeed, we tell people neither of us got Covid, but we both got an extreme case of Tourette’s, which we cannot shake off.
**** ’em all. May they rot in hell.
Red-Dwarf
This item brings to mind the Red Dwarf episode when Red Dwarf is taken over by M-Corp and Dave Lister uses up his quota of social credit dollar/pounds.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5218458/
Who could have foretold that a comedy sci-fi episode would be so close to predicting today’s reality.
Many thanks to Toby and the FSU for bringing this deeply anti-human organisation to our attention. This vile outfit deserves to be outed and urgently needs public attention.
Just another bullsh*t way of introducing more controls into the matrix. It’s an Agenda 21 initiative no doubt about that, typing up loose ends and tightening the noose, towards the Marxist wet dream of communitarianism. Well worth watching them and what they do. Can we stop it? Who knows but all those joining it will be utterly indoctrinated. It needs outing as HP below says.
Another non profit or fake charity using lax tax rules to generate tax deductible cash flow. These entities provide tax receipts for anyone who donates so they are essentially being funded with the taxes you pay. Many governments will donate directly to these NGOs and fake charities. They provide 6 figure salaries to their executives. Elites have learned to pick a cause, get non profit status, write articles then watch the cash flow start. No need to slog away like the plebs. There are over 100,000 non profits and charities, many fake numbered charities, in the UK. Many operate as cult like operations that refuse debate or dissension.
They are supposed to be audited by the tax authorities and not interfere in political processes but the numbers tell you that this is impossible to control and manage. Instability in Western Countries, which allow this abuse of charity rules, is a direct result of this.
Follow the money! These types of organizations are all being funded by your taxes. Unless these rules are changed or revoked, western countries will be destroyed.
Those who believe in the B Lab ideology have a right to their beliefs but equally those who do not agree with the B Lab ideology have a right to their opinions and beliefs.
The problem is when those who support the B Lab ideology try to impose their values on others.
So this is now the new normal … “B Lab U.K., the British arm of this movement, is lobbying for a new Act of Parliament that would mean British businesses have to comply with this ideology ….”
WTF … (to coin a phrase). A US business establishes a UK branch to pressure UK businesses to subscribe to a Communist philosophy and policy and expects to be able to lobby OUR Government for a new law to be passed which will compel businesses & their employees & their suppliers & their customers to comply with it.
In a word … NO!!