“The Moment I Stepped Off the Plane… Five Armed Police Officers Were Waiting”

FrontPage Magazine ^ | Sept 2 2025 | Daniel Greenfield

[texas booster]

Here’s a recent personal account from British comedy writer Graham Linehan, co-creator of Father Ted and a writer on shows like The IT Crowd.

The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting. Not one, not two—five. They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest for three tweets.

If you guessed that the tweets either involved Muslims or transgenders, well no points because it’s obvious. Those are the kinds of speech you get arrested for. You can support Hamas. You can chant that the UK will be Muslim. You can call for the murder of anti-migration protesters.

But some things are too much.

When I first saw the cops, I actually laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “Don’t tell me! You’ve been sent by trans activists”

[texas booster]

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam and leftism.

I looked at the single bail condition: I am not to go on Twitter. That’s it. No threats, no speeches about the seriousness of my crimes—just a legal gag order designed to shut me up while I’m the UK, and a demand I face a further interview in October.
This is the current very real state of the UK. This is not a place with any resemblance to a free country. It’s Orwell’s 1984.

The real state of free speech if leftists ever get power here in the US. Again.

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Daniel Greenfield's website: The Sultan Knish blog

[BenLurkin]

[Telepathic Intruder]

It’s not just internet posts. You can get arrested in the U.K. for saying anything the government interprets as “racist” or “xenophobic”.

[Flavious_Maximus]

A lot of the British police look like something from the Pink Pony Club, or neighborhood bowling alley.

They are exceedingly out of shape, limp wristed and resemble a three legged midget.

Those cops would not last a day in Philadelphia.

[Bob434]

China is jealous of Starmer’s uk!

[Bob434]

I would also imagine that one can be arrested IF someone simply says that someone said something ‘unapproved’

[Antoninus]

I’m amazed that they haven’t arrested JK Rowling yet. Perhaps they are working up the courage...

[Bob434]

please report yourself to the nearest gulag for posting that picture

[Dr. Sivana]

They are bullies. Rowling. an and will fight back.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

You notice how the overworked and underfunded police who can not solve violent crimes because they are overworked and underfunded suddenly manage to turn out in overwhelming force for, let's just call it "non-crime"?

And this is the case on both sides of the pond and both sides of the border.

Why do you think that is?

[TTFlyer]

🎶England sucks like a Caliphate do
Bobbies on bicycles will arrest you
Westminster Abbey the Tower of Big Ben
Are as dead as any town
of Po-tem-kin...🎶

Respect to the great Roger Miller.

[TTFlyer]

It’s called Anarcho-Tyranny.

[mewzilla]

Related...

‘Father Ted’ Co-Creator Graham Linehan Arrested Over Trans X Posts The Metropolitan Police confirmed the Sept. 1 arrest at Heathrow Airport of a "man in his 50s" on suspicion of incitement to violence.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

By Jove you have broken the code!

Have a cookie.

[mewzilla]

The arrest of gender-critical Graham Linehan is insane The writer’s detention by armed police is the latest authoritarian move supporting the trans lobby’s crackdown on language

This isn't insanity.

It is EVIL.

[sauropod]

Unfortunately.

[Brian Griffin]

Try checking the prices of flights to Caracas and Havana on say Air Canada and Kayak. You can’t.

Flights to the UK could be cut off in the same way.

Trump tariffs that a judge might strike down could be replaced by secondary sanctions on the UK.

We need to fight for free speech in the UK.

UK insanity tends to head west across The Pond.

[I want the USA back]

But if you’re myzlim and you rape white girls the police will give you their blessings.

[Telepathic Intruder]

The U.K. equivalent of "swatting". They'll come loaded for bear if you claim a neighbor called you an "Islamofascist" without the proper respect for your muzzie religion. I imagine you can call a Catholic whatever you want, though.