The current assaults to British liberty are intolerable, and, as a concerned American, I am pleased and proud that my government is playing an important role in combating the worst impulses of the Labour Government.
In a report released today amid mounting concerns over overreach and censorship, the Republican-led House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary lays bare a deeply troubling reality: the European Commission is spearheading a coordinated push for stringent digital censorship laws, with copycat measures proliferating from Australia to South Korea.
The document delivers a pointed verdict on Britain's role in this trend. "Perhaps the most notable foreign attempt to imitate the Digital Services Act has been the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act," it states, before cataloguing how the OSA empowers Ofcom to dictate how platforms handle so-called disinformation and misinformation.
What follows is even more chilling. The report details British regulators' efforts to pressure American companies into embedding UK standards on "hate" speech into their global moderation policies, under threat of regulatory retaliation.
It highlights prior instances where Ofcom sought to suppress legitimate political discourse—criticism of government handling during the August 2024 riots, including open discussion of a perceived "two-tier" system of justice.
And then comes a direct indictment of Keir Starmer’s leadership, which is threatening to take X offline in the United Kingdom by wielding the OSA's broad authorities in a manner that echoes the EU's own heavy-handed approach.
Free speech emergency as US Congress rushes to stop Keir Starmer’s EU-style crackdown on Britain - Lee Cohen | Getty Images
This is no abstract policy critique. It is a clarion call from Capitol Hill that Britain's historic commitment to free expression is under siege from within.
Considering the historically robust nature of the Anglo-American alliance, this development is profoundly astonishing.
The United Kingdom, the cradle of parliamentary democracy and the beacon that inspired our American founders, should not require reminders from Washington about the perils of state-directed speech controls.
Yet here we are, with Republican-led oversight doing precisely that: shining a light on how the Online Safety Act, passed in 2023, has morphed from a professed tool for child protection into a mechanism that chills dissent and coerces foreign platforms.
The Act's defenders insist it safeguards the vulnerable, particularly young users, from harmful content. No reasonable person disputes the need to shield children from genuine dangers online.
But the Committee's findings reveal a far broader scope: powers that enable regulators to target political narratives, to demand global compliance with subjective British definitions of harm, and now, potentially, to sever access to a major platform amid an investigation into X's AI presence, Grok.
Starmer's reported insistence that "all options" remain available only underscores the risk that a Labour government, elected on promises of moderation, has embraced tools more suited to authoritarian impulses than to a free society.
Graham Linehan's forthcoming testimony before the Committee this week adds a particularly poignant British voice to the chorus.
The Father Ted co-creator, arrested at Heathrow in September 2025 over old tweets on transgender issues, describes his detention as a blatant attempt to silence a political opponent residing in the United States.
Released on bail conditions that barred him from posting on X, Linehan sees in Starmer's leadership a deepening crisis. He argues that the prime minister, far from ending the culture wars as promised, has hidden from them — allowing elite consensus to override working-class concerns while eroding fundamental freedoms.
I concur wholeheartedly: this appalling situation will not improve until Starmer and his progressive establishment are removed from power, replaced by leaders who respect Britain's sovereign traditions rather than aping Brussels' regulatory zeal.
What makes the Judiciary Committee's work so profound is its defence of the Special Relationship in its truest form.
When British authorities threaten American companies with fines or bans for failing to adopt UK speech codes, they do not merely encroach on commercial interests — they undermine the transatlantic bond built on shared values of liberty.
President Trump's administration has consistently pushed back against such extraterritorial overreach, and this report continues that vital tradition.
It reminds British and EU governments alike that true allies do not stand silent when a nation's core freedoms falter; they speak plainly, as friends must.
Ordinary Britons should welcome this frank scrutiny. It validates their instincts: that post-Brexit Britain was meant to chart an independent course, not to import continental models of control.
The Online Safety Act's overreach betrays that promise, turning a tool ostensibly for safety into one that stifles the robust debate essential to a healthy democracy.
The path forward lies in renewal. Britain must reclaim her voice, rejecting imported censorship in favor of her own resilient traditions.
Until we have seen the back of Starmer’s leadership, it is heartening — and necessary — that voices in Washington continue to hold the line.
For in defending British liberty, they defend the very principles that bind our two nations together.
The Special Relationship endures not through deference, but through honest dialogue.
The United States under Donald Trump is once again proving itself to be a steadfast guardian of liberty — not just for Americans, but for our closest ally across the Atlantic.
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