NO FREE trade with US without free speech, Starmer warned. So ran the Telegraph’s headline on a US intervention in the case of Livia Tossici-Bolt, prosecuted for holding a sign near a Bournemouth abortion clinic reading: ‘Here to talk if you want’. The PM’s hopes of avoiding Donald Trump’s tariffs may hinge on it, the paper reported, referring to the verdict on her case which is due on Friday. ADF International, which is supporting Tossici-Bolt’s legal defence, reports that during a recent visit to the UK Sam Samson, a senior adviser from the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and labour (DRL) met with Tossici-Bolt, who’s facing criminal charges for offering conversation within a legally prohibited ‘buffer zone’ at an abortion clinic.
A subsequent DRL tweet announced that they were monitoring ‘the case ahead of the verdict on Friday. We are concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom.’
Dr Tossici-Bolt has thanked the US State Department for taking note of her case. Her words will resonate with TCW‘s readers: ‘Great Britain is supposed to be a free country, yet I’ve been dragged through court merely for offering consensual conversation. I’m thankful to ADF International for supporting my legal defence. Peaceful expression is a fundamental right – no one should be criminalised for harmless offers to converse.
‘It is tragic to see that the increase of censorship in this country has made the US feel it has to remind us of our shared values and basic civil liberties. I’m grateful to the US administration for prioritising the preservation and promotion of freedom of expression and for engaging in robust diplomacy to that end.
‘It deeply saddens me that the UK is seen as an international embarrassment when it comes to free speech. My case, involving only a mere invitation to speak, is but one example of the extreme and undeniable state of censorship in Great Britain today. It is important that the government actually does respect freedom of expression, as it claims to.’
ADF International legal counsel Jeremiah Igunnubole‘s tough words on the UK’s censorship crisis – the result of a longstanding failure by British politicians to vigilantly protect fundamental rights in the UK, while hypocritically claiming to champion them abroad – are also well made: ‘We cannot consistently claim the UK is a bastion of free speech when law-abiding citizens like Livia are prosecuted for nothing other than peacefully offering to speak to people. What freedom do we have if citizens cannot offer a consensual conversation in a public space?
‘Today, authorities are targeting conversations and even silent prayers they say are related to abortion. Tomorrow, it could be any other topic that goes against the mainstream perspective, as defined and policed by those in power. The slippery slope towards tyranny is clear. This is not how free and democratic countries should function.
‘True friends do not stand idly by as their friends blindly walk into a ditch. The robust protection of fundamental freedoms has historically formed the basis of the special relationship between the UK and the US – a relationship that’s now needlessly strained due, in large part, to the current censorial trajectory of Britain.’
He is right on all counts.
Also that it is right for the US State Department and JD Vance to warn the UK that censorship is antithetical to freedom, democracy, and societal flourishing: ‘Good relations with the US are key for our economic and military security. Criminal prosecutions for silent prayer and offers of consensual conversation are not only illiberal, but also irresponsible.
I fear however he is set for disappointment. The British Government’s response has been predictably tin-eared and arrogant. The Telegraph reports how they’ve downplayed the significance of free speech to trade talks, a ‘Whitehall spokesman’ telling them: ‘We know it is something they have a bugbear about. We are happy to have discussions on our broader, wide-ranging relationship. I don’t think enhancing our economic engagement that is beneficial for both countries is contingent on this particular issue.’
An arrogance they may come to regret. They may be about to find how wrong they are.
Judge Austin, who’ll be handing down Dr Tossici-Bolt’s verdict on Friday, is the same judge who last October found Adam Smith-Connor guilty for silently praying in a ‘buffer zone’, the case which Vice President Vance directly mentioned in his Munich Security Conference Speech. It’s a case that ADF International is also supporting. Mr Smith-Connor’s appeal is set for July. Whitehall can watch this space too.
This isn’t the first time DRL has commented on UK ‘buffer zone’ censorship, ADL remind us. In February, they commented on the arrest of 73-year-old Christian grandmother Rose Docherty for holding a sign that read, ‘Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want’ in a buffer zone in Glasgow.
This is another case that ADF International is supporting. Ms Docherty recently rejected a warning sent to her in a letter from the Procurator Fiscal, as it required her to accept her actions were unlawful. As ADL point out, she did not cause harassment, block access to an abortion facility or influence anyone regarding abortion – activities banned in Scotland’s ‘buffer zones’ – but merely exercised her right to freedom of expression, which is protected in national and international law, by offering consensual conversations.
Reacting to the letter sent by the Procurator Fiscal, Lorcán Price, Irish barrister and Legal Counsel for ADF International, said: ‘The warning issued by the Scottish authorities in effect demands Rose accept culpability for criminal behaviour. This Christian grandmother stood peacefully, alone, making herself available for a discussion with anyone who wished to speak to her. How can this possibly be outlawed in our society?’
How indeed?
In his Munich Security Conference speech in February, Vice President JD Vance also called out Scotland’s draconian abortion facility buffer zones laws which included a letter to residents whose houses were in such a zone, saying: ‘Activities in a private place (such as a house) within the area between the protected premises and the boundary of a Zone could be an offence if they can be seen or heard within the Zone and are done intentionally or recklessly.’
Green Party MSP Gillian Mackay, who authored the Scottish buffer zone law, subsequently acknowledged that in her view prayer in a private home within a buffer zone could be a crime depending ‘on who’s passing by the window’.
Perhaps the US is being too soft. Should it refuse to do any business with the UK and its devolved authorities until some semblance of sanity and justice is restored?
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