The whole thing started over a tweet, and now Lucy Connolly, a 31-year-old mother from England, has become the face of free speech suppression and two-tier justice in the United Kingdom. Her story is exactly what Vice President JD Vance was talking about when he took Europe to task for criminalizing speech, and it looks like Charlie Kirk is about to shine a big light on Ms. Connolly's plight.
Let's go back to last summer in the U.K. The Labour Party's Keir Starmer became prime minister in early July; at the end of the month, England was beset with violence following the stabbing deaths of three little girls by a Muslim teenager in the town of Southport. Long-simmering tensions over the U.K.'s lax border policy, which has led to a sharp rise in mostly young men from the Middle East and Africa making their way to the British Isles, boiled over in a big way, leading to marches, riots and heated confrontations on the streets of England.
Lucy Connolly, who herself had previously lost a child and felt deeply the anguish of the Southport families, took out her frustrations over the killings by posting this on X:
Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the b******* for all I care… if that makes me racist so be it.
Recognizing that she may have gone too far with the post, she took it down within a few hours. But it was too late, and she was arrested and charged with "inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing 'threatening or abusive written material.'" Connolly pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to 31 months in prison.
On Tuesday, Connolly's appeal for a lighter sentence was denied by a British court. She argued that her post merely was a voicing of her frustrations and not an actual call to action, but the court didn't see it that way. And now she languishes in a prison while other criminals, such as members of the infamous "grooming gangs," got off with much lighter sentences for far more harmful offenses.
Starmer is called "Two-Tier" Keir for a reason.
Charlie Kirk, who just happened to be across the pond to participate in the famed Oxford debates, was asked about Lucy Connolly's case on a GB News appearance. He was clearly appalled at the injustice.
“Is this a way a liberal democracy and an ally of the United States acts? What she said will not be worth any prison time in America.”
— Chris Rose (@ArchRose90) May 20, 2025
“You guys are becoming a totalitarian country."@charliekirk11 is baffled about the way Lucy Connolly has been treated. The UK looks bad now. pic.twitter.com/eAGV6jguM3
Kirk gave RedState his thoughts on the case and what he plans to do next to call attention to the plight of Lucy Connolly:
Lucy Connolly is a political prisoner in the UK. She is a mother, a wife, and a patriotic Briton who is suffering because her country's leadership cares far more for protecting the feelings of the millions of foreigners it has imported for no particular reason than for native born sons and daughters.
It's truly tragic that you can be stripped from your family for months, robbed of your liberty, and denied any leniency all for a tweet that was quickly deleted — not to mention the tweet doesn't meet the criteria for incitement that we use in the US.
I hope the UK reverses course quickly because, if not, free speech in the UK is truly dead. In the meantime, I will be referring the matter to the US State Department in hopes they can apply pressure and reunite Lucy with her loving family.
It's unclear at this point what the U.S. can do about the U.K.'s shameful silencing of free speech, but one thing is blindingly clear: JD Vance was right. About all of it. Europe is indeed in a massive backslide on protecting the freedoms of its citizens. And how rich was it for Keir Starmer, seated next to President Trump in the Oval Office, to tell the world his country would protect free speech "for a very long time"?
Demonstrably false.
As Lucy Connolly languishes in jail for the crime of having a spicy take on her country's woes, it's looking a whole lot like the United States is going to have to shame our British cousins into a return to sanity. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage's Reform Party, which champions closed borders and sane immigration policies, is making serious electoral gains in several parts of England.
Thanks to President Trump, illegal immigration into our great country has virtually stopped. Despite the radical left's lies, new legislation wasn't needed to secure our border, just a new president.
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