The Global Story: Why Trumpworld is obsessed with free speech in Britain

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Global Story: Why Trumpworld is obsessed with free speech in Britain"

Podcast: Global News Podcast
Host: BBC World Service
Episode: The Global Story: Why Trumpworld is obsessed with free speech in Britain
Date: September 21, 2025

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Overview

This episode explores the phenomenon of heightened American conservative interest in British free speech laws—particularly among Trump allies—amid growing crackdowns on speech within the United States itself. Hosts Asma Khalid (in Washington, D.C.) and Tristan Redman (in London), joined by BBC's Mike Wendling, unpack how cases in the UK, such as high-profile arrests for inciting violence online, have become lightning rods for American right-wing discourse. At the same time, they highlight the apparent contradictions and ironies within the Trump administration’s own actions on free expression.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump’s State Visit and The US-UK Free Speech Divide

(02:03–02:28)

• President Trump arrives in London, praising the new Prime Minister Keir Starmer but flagging disagreements on social media crackdowns.

  • Trump: "The British government seems to be cracking down on social media posts, people being arrested for tweets..." (02:28)

• Free speech has become a "hot button rallying cry among conservatives in the United States and Britain." (02:47)

2. The US Internal Crackdown Post-Charlie Kirk’s Assassination

(03:23–08:46)

• Recent events in the US—specifically, the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk—intensified debates on free speech domestically.
• Vice President J.D. Vance called on Americans to "call out" and even report anyone celebrating the murder, raising concerns about a climate of fear and "privatizing" speech policing rather than legislating it.
  • Vance: "When you see someone celebrating Charlie's murder, call them out and, hell, call. Call their employer." (04:47)
• Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the revocation of visas for foreign visitors celebrating Kirk’s death—a move seen as narrowing free speech rights for non-citizens.
• Attorney General Pam Bondi advocated public shaming and firing of employees seen as unsupportive of Kirk, blurring lines between free speech and so-called "hate speech."
  • Bondi: "There is free speech and then there's hate speech, and there is no place... especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society." (07:17)
• Both hosts point out the contradiction: while avowing free speech absolutism, these measures clamp down on dissent.

3. The American Right’s Fixation on British Free Speech Restrictions

(08:46–10:59)

• Events in the UK—such as arrests for "incitement" online—gain disproportionate traction among US conservatives, often cited by figures like J.D. Vance.
  • E.g., Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference where he invoked the case of Adam Smith Connor, arrested for silently praying outside an abortion clinic.

4. Case Study: Lucy Connolly and the Riots in Southport

(11:09–14:11)

• BBC’s Mike Wendling recounts a high-profile sequence where social media disinformation, political tension, and a stabbing attack led to riots and heavy-handed police response.
• Lucy Connolly sentenced to 31 months in prison for a tweet inciting migrant violence: “mass deportation now. Set fire to all the bleep Hotels full of bleeps for all I care.”
  • Wendling: “She deleted it, but the judge said her message met the legal definition of inciting violence.” (12:57)
• US conservatives, led by Elon Musk and online influencers, seized on her case as proof the UK is "anti-free speech."

5. Comparing Legal Frameworks: US vs. UK

(15:01–16:24)

• Key Difference: The US First Amendment is absolutist (per Brandenburg v. Ohio: incitement must be imminent and likely), while UK laws criminalize broader categories of speech, including threats and hate speech without requiring proof of imminent violence.
  • Wendling: “In the UK, there’s nothing about it being imminent or being likely to cause violence. It simply has to be calling for violence against…protected groups or a particular person.” (15:01)

6. The Graham Linehan Arrest and US Amplification

(19:29–21:22)

• Who is Graham Linehan? – once a renowned British comedy writer, now prominent anti-trans activist.
  • Arrested at Heathrow by armed police for online comments allegedly inciting public confrontation or violence against transgender women.
• Linehan’s case, like Connolly’s, circulated widely in US conservative media as a cautionary tale about "the dangers of European speech codes".

7. Politics, Double Standards, and the 'Free Speech' Weaponization

(21:58–29:08)

• US Congressional hearings, led by Trump allies like Jim Jordan, now invite UK right-wing icons (e.g., Nigel Farage) to testify about "threats to free expression in Europe."
• Farage: “At what point did we become North Korea?” (23:13)
• Both the US State Department and the Trump administration have formally criticized the UK for "restrictions on freedom of expression."
• Irony: As US Republicans decry UK clampdowns, their own administration is accused by Democrats (and some media) of choking dissent—demonstrating selective outrage: "They seem obsessed with free speech—only speech that agrees with their worldview." (24:44)
• Wendling: “If you say that you’re in favor of free speech, you need to be in favor of free speech that you don’t like.” (25:23)
• Example: US right ignores UK arrests of pro-Palestinian activists (like those supporting "Palestine Action"), highlighting how pure free speech advocacy is rare across the political spectrum.

8. The Transatlantic Social Media Amplification Loop

(28:23–29:42)

• Events in the UK echo through American right-wing media, undergo reinterpretation, and return to Britain with heightened significance—an "amplification loop" facilitated by social media.
  • Redman: “These events... reach the ears via social media of influential people in the United States... then they come back to the United Kingdom in a slightly different form...” (28:23)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• J.D. Vance: “Free speech, I fear, is in retreat.” (02:55)
• Asma Khalid: "He seemed to be encouraging a sort of witch hunt. Call out your neighbors, call out your friends. For speech that is deemed uncomfortable." (05:03)
• Mike Wendling [On Connolly]: “The judge said her message met the legal definition of inciting violence.” (12:57)
• Mike Wendling: "In the UK, ...there is no burden of proof ...to say we can show that your tweet resulted in or was likely to result in any violence.” (15:01)
• Nigel Farage: “At what point did we become North Korea?” (23:13)
• Mike Wendling: "If you say that you're in favor of free speech, you need to be in favor of free speech that you don't like." (25:23)
• Tristan Redman: “Free speech...is all in the eye of the beholder. It’s much easier to crack down on someone’s free speech if you don’t agree with them politically.” (27:46)
• Mike Wendling: “It is certainly shaping the right in the UK. It's very difficult to say, you know, the free speech idea ends at a border.” (29:08)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:03 – Trump raises concerns with PM Starmer about UK free speech
• 03:23–05:22 – US Vice President's comments about “calling out” those celebrating violence
• 06:00 – Secretary of State vows to revoke celebratory foreigners' visas
• 07:17 – Attorney General distinguishes “free speech” from “hate speech”
• 10:10 – Vance’s Munich speech on European threats to speech
• 11:44–14:09 – Southport stabbing, riot, and Lucy Connolly's imprisonment
• 15:01–16:24 – Explaining the US/UK legal split on incitement
• 19:47–21:22 – Graham Linehan’s arrest and US reaction
• 23:13 – Farage likens UK to North Korea in US Congress
• 24:44–25:23 – The US double standard on free speech
• 28:23–29:42 – The social media amplification loop explained

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Tone and Flow

• The discussion is a blend of sharp transatlantic political critique and journalistic inquiry, with a steady, analytical tempo.
• Hosts and guests maintain a neutral, slightly incredulous tone—highlighting contradictions and ironies without overt polemics.
• The episode eschews simplistic takes, choosing instead to dig into legal frameworks, real-world consequences, and political motivation.

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Conclusion

The episode provides a nuanced, timely reckoning with the politicization of “free speech”—contrasting US First Amendment absolutism with the UK’s more proscribed approach, and tracing how each nation's political leaders exploit (and sometimes distort) the issue. The takeaway: debates over free speech, far from being principled or consistent, are deeply shaped by politics, ideology, and social media echo chambers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Transcript

[J.D. Vance]

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[Asma Khalid]

Hey there. I'm Asma Khalid.

[Tristan Redman]

And I'm Tristan Redman. And we're here with a new weekly bonus for you from the Global Story podcast.

[Asma Khalid]

The world order is shifting. Old alliances are fraying and new ones are emerging. Some of this turbulence can be traced to decisions made in the United States. But the US Isn't just a cause of the upheaval. Its politics are also a symptom of it.

[Tristan Redman]

Every day we focus on one story looking at how America and the world shape each other.

[Asma Khalid]

So we hope you enjoy this episode. And to find more of our show, just search for the Global Story. Where? Wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

[Tristan Redman]

President Trump's in London today. He had a big royal to do. Yesterday he met the King and today he's meeting the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, somebody he's quite fond of. I like your Prime Minister. He's slightly more liberal than I am.

[Mike Wendling]

As you've probably heard, but he's a good man. Got a trade deal done.

[Asma Khalid]

A good man. But there is one big issue that's become a sticking point for these strange bedfellows.

[J.D. Vance]

The British government seems to be cracking down on social media posts, people being arrested for tweets. Just wondering how concerning that is to.

[Mike Wendling]

You Mr. President, I will just say that in terms of UK, strange things are happening over there. They are cracking down, and surprisingly so. And I've spoken to the Prime Minister.

[Tristan Redman]

Free speech in the United Kingdom has become a hot button rallying cry among conservatives in the United States and Britain.

[J.D. Vance]

Free speech, I fear, is in retreat.

[Tristan Redman]

From Vice President J.D. vance to Elon Musk, my appeal is.

[Mike Wendling]

To British common sense, which is to.

[J.D. Vance]

Look carefully around you and say, if this continues, what world will you be living in?

[Tristan Redman]

To Republican congressmen, we're concerned about the attacks on free expression in Europe, the.

[Podcast Advertiser]

Chilling effect it all has on speech around the world, including here in America.

[Tristan Redman]

From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redman in London.

[Asma Khalid]

And I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. and today on the global. Why have conservatives in America become so obsessed with free speech an ocean away, especially when a crackdown on speech is kicking off here at home? We've been wanting to do an episode on the American obsession with free speech in the United Kingdom, you know, so we were planning to turn to our BBC colleague to talk about this, all ahead of President Trump's state visit. We, in fact, are gonna talk to him in this episode. But I think it's worth putting all of this debate around free speech in the context of the wild moment that we are living in here in the United States, because I do think this whole conversation has really turned on its head in the aftermath of the murder of Charlie Kirk. And, Tristan, I just wanna talk you through exactly what has been happening around the free speech debates here in the US in the last couple of days.

[J.D. Vance]

JD Vance here live from my office in the White House complex.

[Asma Khalid]

On Monday, the vice president, J.D. vance, went on Charlie Kirk's podcast, filling.

[J.D. Vance]

In for somebody who cannot be filled in for. But I'm gonna try to do my best. My dear friend, the great Charlie Kirk.

[Asma Khalid]

He, in fact, hosted the podcast that day.

[J.D. Vance]

When you see someone celebrating Charlie's murder, call them out and, hell, call. Call their employer. We don't believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility, and there is no civility in the celebration of political assassination.

[Asma Khalid]

You know, employers in the us, they can fire you for anything. I mean, hey, BBC could fire me if I say something and I go rogue. But what he was doing and what felt very unusual was, you know, he's the Vice President of the United States, and he seemed to be encouraging a sort of witch hunt. Call out your neighbors, call out your friends. For smart. That is deemed uncomfortable in this moment.

[Tristan Redman]

But not actually legislating. Against it, almost privatizing the responsibility to do something about it, Calling on employers.

[Mike Wendling]

To help with it.

[Tristan Redman]

Is that right?

[Asma Khalid]

And, Tristan, the truth of the matter is, yes, like, I, too, don't want political violence. Nobody wants political violence here in the United States as an American. But the reality is that the First Amendment protects civil speech and uncivil speech.

[Mike Wendling]

We are not in the business of inviting people to visit our country who are going to be involved in negative and destructive behavior.

[Asma Khalid]

It's not the only thing that's been said.

[Mike Wendling]

We should not be giving visas to people who are going to come to the United States and do things like celebrate the murder, the execution, the assassination of a political figure.

[Asma Khalid]

That same day, we saw the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, say that the administration will revoke the visas of foreign visitors who are celebrating Charlie Kirk's death.

[Tristan Redman]

Okay.

[Mike Wendling]

And if they're already here, we should be revoking their visa.

[Asma Khalid]

Look, what we've seen under this administration is that immigrants, people who are here on green cards, do not have the same rights that US Citizens have. But he made this very clear that this is a type of thing that they are looking into. And then one of the things that raised perhaps the biggest alarm bells here in the US Was when we heard the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, she went on a podcast hosted by a former Trump administration official, Katie Miller, who, by the way, also happens to be Stephen Miller's wife. Very top Trump administration official.

[Podcast Advertiser]

You know, I already texted with Harmeet Dhillon this morning about an Office Depot that refused to print posters of Charlie for a vigil. Can't do that. In the world in which we live. Can't do it. And you're going to be held accountable, and we're going to publicly shame you, too. I saw Office Depot said they fired one of the three people who worked there.

[Asma Khalid]

I think all three should have been terminated.

[Podcast Advertiser]

Agree.

[Asma Khalid]

And we should investigate.

[Podcast Advertiser]

Agree.

[Asma Khalid]

Office Depot, on the podcast that day, she said, there is free speech and then there's hate speech.

[Podcast Advertiser]

There's free speech, and then there's hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society.

[Tristan Redman]

That sounds actually like quite a European dynamic, because that's how it would be seen over here.

[Asma Khalid]

I mean, it went viral, and you saw free speech advocates really raising alarm bells about what does this mean? Because historically, that's just historically not how free speech and the First Amendment has been interpreted here. She then tried to clear up her comments posted on social media, that she's referring to hate speech. That crosses the line into threats of violence and that that is not protected by the First Amendment.

[Tristan Redman]

The US Essentially has a kind of free speech absolutist approach. Is that right? And this would be dynamic.

[Asma Khalid]

We believe that. We have a purist approach. Yeah, we do believe that. But, you know, I would say beyond the response that we are seeing to the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk, there have been a lot of examples over the last several months in this Trump administration in which we have seen the President crack down on opponents. You know, you've seen people picked off the street. I'm thinking of, for example, that Tufts University student in Massachusetts who was picked up after writing an op ed that was pro Palestinian. You've seen a crackdown, a systematic crackdown at a number of universities. You've seen the Trump administration target what they see as ideologically driven language at the Smithsonian museums. And to many folks, this is all viewed as censorship.

[Tristan Redman]

Well, I mean, I'm super interested by this because obviously in the United States there is this idea that there is a free speech problem in Europe. And now we have this free speech kind of firestorm brewing in the United States just when Trump is over here. I mean, the timing is kind of extraordinary.

[Asma Khalid]

I mean, to that point, Tristan, I think all of this heightens the strangeness of the Trump administration's obsession with free speech in the United Kingdom. And that is, in fact, what we are going to be getting into with our colleague Mike Wendling. He's been covering this all for the BBC.

[Tristan Redman]

Mike, it feels recently like the issue of free speech in Britain has really become kind of a touchstone in the United States, but particularly amongst in right wing circles. The first time all of this landed on my radar was much earlier this year when J.D. vance made his first trip to Europe as Vice President.

[J.D. Vance]

Well, thank you, and thanks to all the gathered delegates.

[Mike Wendling]

So J.D. vance came to the Munich Security Conference's big annual conference.

[J.D. Vance]

The threat that I worry the most about vis a vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external act. And what I worry about is the threat from within.

[Mike Wendling]

As part of his speech, he really castigated American allies about free speech.

[J.D. Vance]

And across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.

[Mike Wendling]

One of the cases that he brought up and that he mentioned was happened outside of an abortion clinic.

[J.D. Vance]

A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith Connor with the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes.

[Mike Wendling]

And I think a lot of people were surprised to learn that The Vice President would know about something that happened in a very local court in the uk. But this should not be surprising at all, to be honest, because this is the kind of thing that JD Vance and other people will seize upon as examples of the British government and how they are clamping down on free speech.

[Asma Khalid]

Was there an example of something that really galvanized the American right just in the last several months, over the course of the last year, that you think gave this movement new attention?

[Mike Wendling]

Yeah. So there's a few cases that have really touched a nerve amongst the right in the US last summer here in the uk.

[Podcast Advertiser]

Now, though, to Southport, and hundreds of.

[Mike Wendling]

People have attended a vigil last night.

[Podcast Advertiser]

To pay tribute to the three girls who were killed in a knife attack at a children's dance workshop.

[Mike Wendling]

Three young girls were attending a Taylor Swift dance class and somebody came in and went on a stabbing spree. In the wake of that, disinformation and misinformation circulated about the identity of the attacker, and the blame in many quarters fell on migrants.

[Podcast Advertiser]

Just hours later, violent clashes broke out.

[Tristan Redman]

Close to where the girls were stabbed to death.

[Podcast Advertiser]

39 police officers were injured, with 27 needing hospital treatment.

[Mike Wendling]

There were riots and protests outside of hotels and places where migrants are being housed by the UK government. Some of these protests started as peaceful protests, but then there was a number of attempted arson attacks, with people sort of throwing bottles and trying to light hotels on fire, and clashes with police in various towns all around the country. Now, there was also police action against people who were posting things online. And I'll point out just one particular case that really energized people here in the UK and the US. A woman named Lucy Connolly. She was sentenced to 31 months in prison for posting something on Twitter on X.

[Podcast Advertiser]

Her post read, mass deportation now. Set fire to all the bleep Hotels full of bleeps for all I care. If that makes me racist, so be it.

[Mike Wendling]

She was visited by police and she was arrested. She claims that she gave an apology and she deleted the tweet.

[Podcast Advertiser]

It was viewed 300,000 times. She thought that was probably a mistake, wasn't it? I let my anger get in the way.

[Mike Wendling]

She deleted it, but the judge said her message met the legal definition of inciting violence.

[Asma Khalid]

Mike, was there causation between her tweet and what happened, or did she put this online as things were already bubbling up in the atmosphere?

[Mike Wendling]

Things were already bubbling up in the atmosphere. And there's proof that what Lucy Connolly put online convinced anybody to go out and commit an arson attack or commit violence against a migrant or a police officer. There's no causal link there. But prosecutors under British law did not have to prove that. The judge in the Lucy Connolly case referred to this in his sentencing comments as well.

[Nigel Farage]

Lucy Connolly, you've pleaded guilty to the offence of distributing material with the intention of stirring up racial hatred.

[Mike Wendling]

He said you encouraged activity which threatened or endangered life in relation to harm.

[Nigel Farage]

It's again agreed, correctly, that what you did encouraged activity which threatened or endangered life and therefore falls within category one.

[Mike Wendling]

And that is enough to get a stiff sentence in Britain in a situation like that.

[Tristan Redman]

31 months is a long time.

[Mike Wendling]

31 months is definitely a serious sentence in the British system. And this became a big thing in the United States. You had Elon Musk tweeting about it all the time. You had a lot of right wing influencers who were up in arms about people being visited by the police in the midst of this civil disorder for messages they post online.

[Asma Khalid]

And I will say American to American here, Mike. I genuinely do not understand what the free speech laws in the United Kingdom are and how an arrest like this can happen because I don't think it makes sense to a lot of Americans and not just Americans who are conservative. It seems to run so counter to our perceptions around free expression given the First Amendment. So how exactly do the United Kingdom and the US differ around this? Because we've been seen as kindred spirits on this issue.

[Mike Wendling]

There's a key difference and is that there is no First Amendment. There is no sort of written rule that's set in stone that guarantees freedom of speech. It's enshrined in law to a degree. But when it comes to specifically the question of violence and inciting violence, British law is very different than the US and let me explain it like this, because the guiding law in the United States comes from a 1969 case called Brandenburg vs Ohio. Clarence Brandenburg, he was a Ku Klux Klan leader and he made a speech and he burnt a cross and he was arrested for inciting violence. But when his case reached the Supreme Court, they threw out the conviction because they said that speech is only illegal if it's directed to or inciting or producing imminent lawless action. So the word imminent is really important in that decision. And there was another qualification there that said that the speech would have to be likely to incite or produce some violence. And in the uk, there's nothing about it being imminent or being likely to cause violence. It simply has to be calling for violence against perhaps certain protected groups or against a particular person. So there is no burden of proof on a prosecutor to say we can show that your tweet resulted in or was likely to result in any violence.

[Asma Khalid]

Coming up next, how to square this obsession with free speech in Brighton with what's going on at home in the U.S.

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[Tristan Redman]

There'S also been recently the story of the arrest of Graham Linehan and I don't fully understand that story, how it became came to be such a kind of reference point and why it's taken off. Can you talk us through what actually happened when Graham Linehan was arrested this month, please?

[Asma Khalid]

Also, who exactly is he? Because I feel like I've only heard of him in the context of this arrest. I don't think a lot of us even know who exactly he is.

[Mike Wendling]

Sure. Well, Graham Linehan was, is a comedian, a comedy writer and he really became famous many years ago for writing a show called Father Ted. Dougal, there were Chinese people there.

[Tristan Redman]

All right. Yeah.

[Mike Wendling]

Dougal. I wouldn't have done a Chinaman impression if I'd known there was going to be a Chinaman there to see me doing a Chinaman impression.

[Asma Khalid]

Why not?

[Mike Wendling]

Certainly not politically correct and a huge hit on British television in the 1990s. More recently though, he's turned into an anti transgender activist, probably the second most popular figure involved in this anti transgender activism, the first being J.K. rowling. So he got off a plane at Heathrow Airport and he was met there by five armed police officers, which is very rare. Actually, it's rare for police officers in Britain to be armed in the first place. And to meet a celebrity coming off of an airplane in that kind of manner is part of the reason why this has attracted so much attention. It's highly unusual. And he was arrested for some comments that he made earlier in the year online, including one in which he said that anybody who sees a transgender woman in a female only space should make a scene, call the cops and paraphrasing here, punch him in the, you know, what's it was that as well as other messages we believe that led to this arrest.

[Asma Khalid]

I don't know a whole lot about Graham Linehan and the only ways in which I have heard about him have largely been through American conservatives, Republicans who have embraced and championed his cause because they see it as a real violation of free speech. In the story that got some attention the other week here in the United States, though, is that the conservative lawmaker, strong loyal ally to President Trump, Jim Jordan, Congressman, he invited Nigel Farage to address a congressional hearing all about Europe's purported threats to free speech.

[Nigel Farage]

Thank you, Chairman Jordan, for inviting me. J.D. vance did us all a service at the Munich Security Conference back in February this year. He really got this debate up and running and it's a vital one. This has all been going wrong now for a couple of decades.

[Mike Wendling]

Nigel Farage is the leader of the Reform Party. It's a party that is a right wing party to the right of the Conservative Party, which has traditionally been the main right wing party in the UK European Union.

[Nigel Farage]

So I've come today to be a klaxon to say to you, don't allow, piece by piece, this to happen here in America.

[Mike Wendling]

Nigel Farage was also at the forefront of campaigns, for instance, to leave the European Union, Brexit.

[Tristan Redman]

And if you look at the betting odds, currently is possibly the favorite to be next prime minister.

[Mike Wendling]

There's a long way to a general election, but through controversy over many issues, immigration and free speech included, he's gained popularity. So Farage is actually aboard this train.

[Nigel Farage]

You will be doing us and yourselves and all freedom loving people a favor. If your politicians and your businesses said to the British government, you've simply got this wrong. At what point did we become North.

[Mike Wendling]

Korea Democrats in Congress, when he appeared in that hearing, said, you must be crazy if you're going to compare the United Kingdom to a totalitarian state.

[Asma Khalid]

You know, Mike, every year the US State Department releases an annual human rights report. And the most recent one they released this summer, specifically criticized the United Kingdom for restrictions on freedom of expression, which really caught my attention. And it cited grievous examples of government censorship. That's certainly how the Trump administration sees it. And there are a number of other Americans who'd agree with that assessment as well.

[Mike Wendling]

Absolutely. And there is clearly a line that the US Government, driven by the Trump administration, is taking here. They are concerned about free speech. You can see it in the comments by JD Vance, you can see it by the comments by the U.S. state Department. I'm sure that later this week Donald Trump will be meeting with Keir Starmer, the prime minister. And I'm sure that at some point, perhaps not in front of the cameras, they'll be talking about free speech and the limits of it. Now, the prime minister has in the past said that he doesn't see cases like Graham Linehan's case as being free speech issues, more about inciting violence and public order issues. But certainly the Trump administration does not agree with that perspective. And it's become something of an issue between the two governments.

[Asma Khalid]

You know, I think it's worth pointing out that as much as the MAGA right has taken issue with the United Kingdom's interpretation of free speech, you know, here at home, a number of Democrats and others frankly, have criticized the Trump administration for an unprecedented crackdown of free speech. And it seems, I would argue to, to many here in the US that the Trump administration seems obsessed with the idea of free speech. Only speech, though that agrees with their worldview and they are actually okay, content and embracing the idea of cracking down on free speech that is uncomfortable with their worldview.

[Mike Wendling]

It is ironic and people have argued with some justification that it is hypocritical. If you say that you're in favor of free speech, you need to be in favor of free speech that you don't like. And you've listed a number of examples there where clearly there is not a consistency in the Trump administration policy about a blanket promotion of free speech. In the UK context, I think there's a very interesting example. So under the UK's terrorism laws, they are able to prescribe organizations and prevent people from publicly affiliating or expressing support for their organizations, right? And very controversial organization that has been controversially put on that list, Palestine Action. Right. Well known activists for, amongst other things, they broke in and vandalized Royal Air Force Base. And that seems to be the event that has put them onto the terrorist. Hundreds of people have since been arrested in the United Kingdom simply for saying that they support that organization, simply for making the statement, I support Palestine Action. Right? And clearly they would not be arrested in the United States.

[Tristan Redman]

What I'm hearing from you is that in Britain right now there are allegations from people on the right who are saying that people are being arrested by overbearing police for supposed free speech violations. And at the same time, there are people on the left who are saying people on their side are also being arrested. For example, members of this group, Palestine Action.

[Mike Wendling]

More to the point, the right wing in the United States is not at all exercised by Palestine Action. Right. Clearly that's a free speech issue. Right now the government of the UK will call it a terrorism issue. And that's a separate debate. However, we do not hear the Vice President of the United States saying it's outrageous that people simply for saying that they support this organization are being arrested and prosecuted. And that's the difference. Because the key thing there is that they do not agree with the views of Palestine Action. Right. There's very few sort of pure free speech advocates. I Wouldn't sort of say that that's a view that's confined to the right. Clearly, people on the left are also perhaps not as worked up about Graham Linehan as they are about Palestine action.

[Tristan Redman]

What I'm taking from our conversation is that free speech, the free speech debate to some extent, is it's all in the eye of the beholder. It's much easier to crack down on someone's free speech if you don't agree with them politically. Is that a fair assessment?

[Mike Wendling]

Exactly, exactly.

[Tristan Redman]

And that applies as much in the United States as it does in the uk.

[Mike Wendling]

Absolutely. Absolutely. And the reason why people are so excited in the US about the UK has to do more with their own views, and particularly about American politics and American free speech, rather than the facts that are on the ground here in the uk.

[Tristan Redman]

I mean, one of the things that occurs to me when I look at all this is that these are all events that we've spoken about today which are occurring in the United Kingdom. They somehow reach the ears via social media of influential people in the United States. They pass through a kind of US social media filter, and then they come back to the United States Kingdom, and then they land in the United Kingdom in a slightly different form than the form they had when they first went over to the United States. It's almost like a kind of amplification loop. And that the way the United States perceives these events then changes the influence that they have on the ground in the United Kingdom. I just wonder what you thought about that.

[Mike Wendling]

There is no separating something that happens in a small village in the UK from what the Vice President of the United States is saying. Right. So this stuff is bouncing back and forth, and it is certainly shaping the right in the uk. It's very difficult to sort of say, you know, the free speech idea ends at a border.

[Asma Khalid]

Thank you so much, Mike. We really appreciate you joining us on the show.

[Mike Wendling]

Thanks.

[Asma Khalid]

So when Trump and Starmer meet today, it seems like free speech will likely come up in some format. But I think in the context of everything that has happened in the United States, President Trump's standing on this issue is a whole lot murkier. And I wonder, too, whether in fact, he actually even has the credibility amongst the Brits to be bringing this up. Given the coordinated crackdowns on free speech, particularly on the speech of people he disagrees with, it seems like the Brits might not find him to be the most reliable narrator to be pushing back against the UK's perceived threats on free speech.

[Tristan Redman]

Well, Asma, I feel like there's another possible way that this plays out, which would be in some ways the most British way of all, which is when you have a guest over like Donald Trump in this case and there's something uncomfortable that is unsaid between you, the most British thing of all is just to say nothing and pretend it's not there. So I wonder if that might be what happens. I guess we'll see.

[Asma Khalid]

That is it for today's episode of the Global Story. Thank you all for listening and we'll talk to you again tomorrow.

[Tristan Redman]

Cheerio.

[J.D. Vance]

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