The arrest of Graham Linehan by five armed police officers for gender critical Tweets broke the spell of the disingenuous claim that the free speech crisis is a "dog whistle".
The dismissive centrists can no longer say that this is confected outrage.
The extreme disproportionate force cannot be justified even by the authoritarian left.
It was a watershed moment, and no one, not even James O’Brien or Owen Jones, can deny that we have a serious problem – at least not with any dignity.
Graham should never have been arrested in the first place, and so dropping of the baseless investigation into his supposed crime can hardly be described as a victory – at best, it is a bittersweet one.
He is a symbol of unassuming self-sacrifice, and through his courageous defence of women and girls, has unintentionally brought Orwell’s assertion that “telling the truth is a revolutionary act” to life.
Shortly after the news that the Met Police were taking no further action came the unexpected and glorious announcement that they will no longer be investigating non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs), a decision Scotland Yard directly linked to the mishandling of Graham’s arrest.
This is a huge victory for freedom of speech in the UK. Only last week Lord Young tabled an amendment to abolish NCHIs altogether.
Connie Shaw, from the Free Speech Union, reveals the major task ahead following Graham Linehan's victory
|PA
However, as Lord Young has said, this victorious announcement from the Metropolitan Police is El-Alamein, not D-Day.
The battle continues, and the Free Speech Union will not rest.
The next task is to ensure all other police forces follow suit, and that non-crime hate incidents are non-disclosable on enhanced DBS checks.
Not only are they a colossal waste of 60,000 hours of annual police time, but they can prevent you from getting a job that requires such a check.
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The charges against Graham Linehan have been dropped | PAThey are a plague on all that Britain supposedly stands for, including the legal maxim that unless something is prohibited, it is permitted.
It is plainly paradoxical that state enforcers would have any business in cracking down on something that is categorically not a crime.
The question is, why did it take such an extreme ordeal to wake people up to this crisis?
The Free Speech Union has been raising the alarm since 2020, and our cases are well-established in the political zeitgeist, from Linzi Smith to Lucy Connolly, Jamie Michaels and Hamit Coskuns.
Connie Shaw was also 'cancelled' over her gender critical views
| GB NEWSSince April 2025, we have known the disgraceful reality is that 30 people a day are being arrested on suspicion of committing just two of the speech crimes in our statute books.
It can often be difficult to visualise such unbelievable statistics, and the sceptics will presume that at least some of these people deserved it.
But, like with many scandals, it is the human aspect, in this case the extent of the mental and physical toll this has had upon Graham – to the extent he had sought refuge in the US – that has drawn acute attention to the issue.
At great personal cost, Graham Linehan has forced even the doubters to start paying attention.