Free Republic

There has never been a First Amendment in Great Britain, although for a couple hundred years the Common Law was understood to give broad latitude in allowing the expression of opinion. Not so much anymore. Several “Public Order” laws passed since 1986 have increasingly restricted speech to the point now a person can be arrested for offending others, particularly those in protected classes. This has resulted in some shocking cases, such as the arrest of an autistic girl for blurting that a female police officer “looked like her nan,” who is a lesbian. She was separated from her parents after...

British police come to a man’s home to arrest him for posting a video to Facebook of him criticizing migrants in his area for putting Palestine flags up everywhere in the neighborhood.

A surveillance authority in the country’s troubling Online Safety Bill won’t be enforced, officials say. But for how long?The U.K. government finally acknowledges that a component of the Online Safety Bill that would force tech companies to scan data and messages for child porn images can't be implemented without violating the privacy rights of all internet users and undermining the data encryption tools that keep our information safe. And so the government is backing down—for now—on what's been called the "spy clause." Using the justification of fighting the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), part of the Online Safety...

A Sudanese asylum seeker convicted of attempting to meet up with a pedophile hunter posing as a 14-year-old girl on the internet has been spared prison time in the U.K. and sentenced to 30 hours of community service. Mofasim Abdulkarim, 23, pleaded guilty to attempted sexual communication with a child and asking a child to take indecent pictures; he appeared before Leicester Crown Court on Aug. 30. The court heard how Abdulkarim, who had been living in taxpayer-funded hotel accommodation in Leicester since arriving in the U.K., befriended a fake profile on Facebook portraying a 14-year-old schoolgirl called Milly. The...

Police have been accused of heavy handedness after an autistic teenage girl was arrested by seven officers after saying 'a female officer looked like her lesbian nana'. The 16-year-old, who also suffers from scoliosis, had been driven to her home in Leeds, West Yorkshire, by officers after midnight when she allegedly made the comment. She was later dragged away screaming in the early hours of Monday morning having been served a 'homophobic public order offence'. The incident was recorded by the girl's mother who uploaded the footage to TikTok. The mother posted: 'This is what police do when dealing with...

Criminals have been given a “licence to shoplift” in the UK as police resources are spent elsewhere, warned the head of a major retailer. Dame Sharon White, the chairwoman of John Lewis & Partners, which operates department stores and the upmarket supermarket chain Waitrose in the UK has warned of increased criminality, including shoplifting and assaults on retail workers amid the cost of living crisis. She stated that assaults on employees at Waitrose had doubled since 2020. Citing research from the British Retail Consortium, Dame Sharon noted that there are 850 incidents of abuse or violence at retail stores in...

Rush to turn on air conditioning during heatwave causes spike in demand for electricity Britain has started burning coal to generate electricity for the first time in a month and a half, after the heatwave made solar panels too hot to work efficiently. One unit at Uniper’s Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal power plant in Nottinghamshire started producing electricity for the first time in weeks on Monday morning, while another coal-powered plant was warmed up in case it was needed by the early afternoon. The National Grid turned to coal to generate electricity as a rush to turn on air conditioning and fans...

Shocking footage has captured the moment a handcuffed man who was in police custody in London, fatally shot an officer while in a cell. Louis De Zoysa, 25, pulled out an antique revolver from a concealed underarm holster and fired from point-blank range, with a bullet striking Police Sergeant Matt Ratana. The accused had his hands secured behind his back, but he managed to fire four rounds, The Sun reports. Edited CCTV released on Wednesday night London time, captured the shooting which killed the 54-year-old cop. A full-length version was played to jurors at De Zoysa’s trial, attended on Wednesday...

A trial of universal basic income (UBI) will be trialled for the first time in England where 30 people will be given a monthly stipend with no strings attached. The UBI scheme, to be run by the Autonomy think tank, will see 30 people given a monthly allowance of £1,600 a month without any requirements. The scheme will take place in the town of Jarrow in the North East of England and in the East Finchley area of North London, Sky News reports. The pilot scheme will also draft a control group that won’t receive the free cash, in order...

VIDEOActually, the way things have been going on this side of the pond, America also needs American cops like Dirty Harry.

Far-left Mayor of London Sadiq Khan declared that London needs “more migrants” and that the government should give cities the power to set their own immigration policies. “I have no hesitation at all saying that we need more migrants in London, ” Kahn told Channel 4, going on to claim that there were social and cultural benefits to the city through mass migration.

Slightly more than 30,000 muggings in England and Wales did not even result in a suspect being identified by police last year, research released by the Liberal Democrats has shown. Just 8% of all offences of robbery of personal property reported to the police last year saw someone being charged, the data from the House of Commons library research showed. West Midlands police were the worst performing force by this metric, with 4% of robberies reported to its officers in 2022 leading to a charge, followed by Northamptonshire at 5%, with the Avon and Somerset and the Hampshire forces both...

The left-wing Labour Party is reportedly prepping plans to ban all new oil and gas developments in the North Sea and only provide loans and investments to so-called green projects. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who is widely predicted to become the next prime minister of the United Kingdom, is set to make the green agenda a central feature of his pitch to voters in the upcoming general election.

Regulators in Britain have banned a Christian teacher from the profession for life for “misgendering” a student, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the country. The Teaching Regulation Authority (TRA) has ruled that Joshua Sutcliffe, 33, formerly of the Cherwell School at Oxford, should be banned from the teaching profession for failing to use the so-called preferred pronouns of a girl student who identified as a boy, which they claimed amounted to not providing the pupil with “dignity and respect”. Sutcliffe admitted that there was an instance in which he praised a group...

Transport for London (TFL) – the government arm responsible for travel across Britain’s capital city – has banned white people from applying to internships. The organization – whose chairman is London Mayor Sadiq Khan – now only accepts applications from only ethnic minorities. The organization’s website states, to apply to the Stuart Ross Communications Internship, “you must be of Black, Asian and minority ethnic background, defined as having some African, Afro-Caribbean, Asian or other non-white heritage.” The Stuart Ross Internship has been excluding “non-whites” for a number of years already, with many graduates of the scheme going on to work...

A terrifying gang of 21 hooded thugs has been terrorising the residents of a leafy Worcestershire town, forcing the elderly to stay inside their homes. The, group estimated to have members aged between 12 and 16, was captured on camera loitering outside a family home in Malvern Link. According to the locals, the mob has been threatening people with knives and throwing stones at houses. They are also urinating in neighbouring gardens, stealing, and setting fires through people's letterboxes. Eight officers issued five dispersal notices to some of the teenagers, meaning they could not visit the train station for up...

Oops! Did Someone Forget to Save a Seat for Jill Biden at King Charles' Coronation? Well, well, well, looks like First Lady Jill Biden had a bit of a giggle-inducing seating arrangement at King Charles' coronation on May 6. While her hubby, President Joe Biden, couldn't make it for reasons unknown, Jill headed to Westminster Abbey to witness the royal affair. However, it seems like the organizers weren't exactly rolling out the red carpet for her as they stuck her all the way in the back. Oh boy, you can just feel the love and respect pouring in, can't you?...

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservatives were facing a bleak set of local election results with voters punishing his party over political scandals, sluggish economic growth and high inflation, early results showed on Friday. While governing parties often struggle at mid-term elections, the council results in England will be the largest, and possibly last, test of voter sentiment before the next general election which is expected to be held in 2024. The Conservative Party suffered a net loss of 144 seats on local councils that were up for re-election, the early results showed. The main opposition Labour Party, which is...

ANDREW Bridgen has been thrown out of the Tories for good after comparing Covid vaccines to the Holocaust, the Sun can reveal. The MP for North West Leicestershire has already had the Conservative whip removed - but bosses have now also expelled him as an ordinary member. In a statement Mr Bridgen claimed it was an issue of "freedom of speech" - and declared his intention to stand at the next election. The MP has been forced to sit as an independent after Chief Whip Simon Hart furiously booted him from the Tory parliamentary cohort in January. It came after...

A two-time Olympian has ripped rules that allowed a transgender runner to beat nearly 14,000 women in the female category of the London Marathon. Mara Yamauchi — who finished sixth in the marathon at the 2008 Beijing Olympics — lashed out after trans racer Glenique Frank, 54, gushed to the BBC about using “girl power” to run the key UK race on Sunday. “Males in the [female] category is UNFAIR for females,” Yamauchi tweeted alongside a clip of the mid-race interview by the sports bra-wearing runner who also gushed about soon becoming “a gran.” “Nearly 14,000 actual females suffered a...