Imagine facing arrest simply for posting sharp or critical comments online. Picture police at your door for expressing opposition to mass immigration. Envision a country where you could be imprisoned for years without a jury ever deciding your guilt.
This isn't dystopian fiction - it's the reality unfolding in Britain today, my former home and once part of the free world.
Earlier this year, parents Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine from Hertfordshire were arrested in front of their children over disparaging remarks made in a private parents' messaging group. They were among the estimated 10,000 people arrested in Britain this year for online posts - more than in communist China.
Of course, not all those arrested are sent to prison. But plenty are. Lucy Connolly received a 31-month jail sentence after posting online, including a call for “mass deportation now.”
Lucy Connolly and others have received “exemplary” sentences - in other words, instead of the British courts dispensing justice dispassionately, they have handed down arbitrary sentences designed to make an example of people, as one might expect in a third-world country.
For most people arrested in these cases, the process itself - months of uncertainty, reputational damage, family stress and the inability to earn a living - is intended to be the punishment. Again, this is redolent of what you might find in a third world country, rather than the home of Magna Carta.
Clause 39 of Magna Carta declares that no free person shall be punished “except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land” - enshrining the right to trial by jury. Yet recently, Britain’s Justice Secretary David Lammy has proposed reforms that would severely limit jury trials, restricting them largely to the most serious offenses (such as murder, manslaughter, and rape) while moving many others to judge-only hearings.
If these changes proceed, someone in Britain could be arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned for years for something they said online - all without ever facing a jury of fellow citizens.
Is Britain still a free country? A generation ago, the question would have seemed absurd. Today, it hangs in the balance. Truly free societies do not treat their citizens this way.
England, birthplace of common law, no longer applies the law equally. In some cases, individuals have received longer sentences for online speech than others convicted in serious child grooming gang scandals.
Just last week, Luke Yarwood was sentenced to 18 months in prison for anti-immigration posts viewed only 33 times. That same period saw Demiesh Williams, who beat a man to death in a supermarket queue dispute, receive five years and three months.
Why should Americans care? Because Britain serves as a stark warning of how quickly a once-free society can slide into anarcho-tyranny: lax enforcement against repeat offenders, yet draconian crackdowns on law-abiding citizens who speak out.
To understand why the British state has turned against its own people, consider what occurred just last week on the other side of the world in Australia.
During a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach, two Pakistani men - one an immigrant to Australia, the other his son - massacred 16 people for being Jewish.
Now reflect for a moment on how the Australian authorities responded.
Did Australian authorities announce any review of how such extremists entered the country—or how radical views took hold among those raised here? No word of it.
Instead, Prime Minister Albanese quickly reaffirmed that “diversity is Australia’s strength,” while pushing for tighter gun laws and stronger hate-speech restrictions.
Rather than scrutinize immigration or integration failures, the focus shifted to limiting firearms access and curbing free expression.
Officially, these speech curbs aim to stop antisemitic mob chants - like those heard outside the Sydney Opera House after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, atrocities.
You don’t need powers of prophecy to grasp that Australia’s new free speech restrictions will end up being used to lock up those that complain about Muslim migration more than they’ll ever be used to tackle extremist Islam.
Instead of acknowledging and facing up to the problem of radical Islam, the authorities in Australia are trying to make it as much about tackling "hate" and "Islamophobia".
Now do you begin to see why the authorities over in Britain have turned Soviet on their own citizens?
The British public now sees the real-world consequences of mass third-world immigration - roughly 4 million arrivals in the five years since I left - and they don’t like what they see.
Before Elon Musk’s acquisition of X, the state could suppress dissent through algorithmic censorship. Now, with that avenue limited, targeted prosecutions and heavy sentences have become the tool of choice. The situation is that dire.
Jury trials are being curtailed - not merely to clear backlogs (the official reason), but because juries often acquit those with dissident views, frustrating state efforts to silence opposition.
So how should America respond as Britain and other Western nations drift toward autocracy?
A year ago, I half-jokingly suggested that if Britain deteriorated further, Donald Trump could offer every Brit under 30 the right to work in America, triggering a collapse-inducing exodus. That notion no longer feels entirely far-fetched.