Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Admiral Yi]

Surely punch him in the balls is incitement to violence?

[Gups]

Possibly. But not requiring an arrest at an airport by five armed police

[Gups]

As reported by the Times, I should say

Are you sure that is the reason he was arrested? Or is the Times reporting on what information is currently publicly available and making an assumption?

No. How can I be sure?

[Sheilbh]

So, uhm, was he inciting for violence?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/sep/02/father-ted-creator-graham-linehan-arrested-over-posts-on-transgender-issues

It'll be S127 of the Communications Act 2003:

A person is guilty of an offence if he—

(a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or

(b)causes any such message or matter to be so sent.

The police don't keep good centralised stats on this but some academic research recently estimates there were 12,000 arrests in 2023 on that law. I posted an Economist article on it a while back but it's that law. Interestingly the same research noted the same pattern as in other crimes that actually convictions have declined over the last 10 years but arrests have increased. But this is very much not the first time those types of comments have prompted arrests.

I think the most recent really mad one was a woman who was sending "fart selfies" by WhatsApp to her ex's new girlfriend (grossly offensive).

I can't seem to find anything about the content of the tweets other than what he says and the vague, "The man in his 50s was arrested on suspicion of inciting violence. This is in relation to posts on X." from the Metropolitan Police mentioned in The Guardian's article. It seems convenient for him to be getting so much press coverage as he's trying to drum up support to rally outside of his trial for harassing and damaging the phone of a trans woman that starts this Thursday.

Yeah. This will absolutely be based on his report of the incident/interview only. I'm not a media lawyer but I work in media and follow some of these cases.

The police do not give details beyond "man in his fifties arrested" at the point of arrest. More details (nationality, name, residence) are given at the point a person is charged and reporting restrictions kick in - which means the press can basically only report what is on the record in court. The idea is to try and ensure a fair trial by severely limiting what the press can say when a trial is pending or in progress. But it's also why, for example, the "perp walk" sort of thing is not allowed here because it biases the trial and the police are not allowed to do it. Those rules struggle in the age of the internet but still holds up fairly well.

But what that means is that the police won't give details on the record before charge. Off the record they will be briefing favoured journalists but this has less impact now, because the courts have held that reporting allegations, interviews or investigations into someone is a breach of their Article 8 right to privacy and family life (case was the director of a UK listed company being investigated for fraud by US law enforcement). The media some times can get around this if there's a really strong public interest argument but it's very risky.

What that means is that unless the person who has been interviewed, under investigation or arrested (but not charged) talks about it - it is very very difficult to publish a story about it. So almost all of the reporting will come from him.

And who else would it come from - if it's not him or the police it could really be anyone. S127 doesn't require a message to be targeted. There was a famous case about 10-15 years ago of a man whose flight was delayed and made a joke on Twitter about blowing up the airport and was arrested on s127 grounds (threatening). Recently there was someone who posted a despicable video of a model Grenfell tower they made and set on fire as a joke who was prosecuted (grossly offensive). So when it comes to social media anyone can report to the police. Again, stats aren't great, but estimates are there are tens of thousands of reports of social media/"you can't say that" police reports a year. My guess would be that there are hundreds if not thousands of plausible tweets that people have reported to the police by him over the years.

But I agree with your point and there is a challenge in the British press on this recently. In recent years there's been regular stories along the lines of "X famous person fired from beloved show following allegations" which do not give any information about what the allegations are. My suspicion it's most Article 8 fears until they can build a public interest argument (and sometimes they can't - I've no idea what racist remarks the host of Masterchef made that he was fired for, but I assume they were racist) - because unless the person who was fired comes forward there's not much you can print.

[Sophie Scholl]

Probably his history of posts and actions all on the same topic also moved him up the list of folks to look into/arrest. The three tweets are merely the tip of a massive mountain of hate he has pushed toward trans folks.

[HVC]

12000? That seems oddly high.

[Sheilbh]

12000? That seems oddly high.

As I say there's no central statistics - and the police don't like recording things because they understand the importance of evidence - it was calculated via responses to FOIA requests to all the police forces requesting several years of data. And sorry initially calculated by the Times.

It is high. But another way of framing it is that it's about 30-35 a day and there's 35 police forces in England and Wales, plus Police Scotland (I can only assume that, as with many speech laws, the PSNI judiciously decides to ignore them lest they ignite a war of all against all) - so it's basically one arrest a day per police force, each of which will have an area of hundreds of thousands or millions of people. It only looks like a lot if you look nationally and add it up - but noone does because there's no central stats.

From the House of Lords Library:


(If I was being cynical I'd say that I suspect it's a fantastic way to pad the stats to arrest people for some bad tweets and that the increase seems to coincide exactly with the decline in other measures of police effectiveness - but also with the downsizing of forces and Cressida Dick's strategy )

Edit: But another of my examples on criminal law and police powers that you anything you support will be pushed to the very edge by the police. It will not only be used in the judicious, thoughtful, narrowly constrained way you imagine/MPs describe when supporting that legislation - unless you literally constrain them.  See also Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 and vandalising a plane on an RAF base.

[HVC]

(If I was being cynical I'd say that I suspect it's a fantastic way to pad the stats to arrest people for some bad tweets and that the increase seems to coincide exactly with the decline in other measures of police effectiveness - but also with the downsizing of forces and Cressida Dick's strategy )

yeah the doubling in 5 years does make it appear so. Guess the paperwork is easy too. "Reason for arrest: Was mean on the internet. "

[crazy canuck]

As reported by the Times, I should say

Are you sure that is the reason he was arrested? Or is the Times reporting on what information is currently publicly available and making an assumption?

No. How can I be sure?

You said that was the reason he was arrested at the airport.  But that might not be the reason.

[Josquius]

On the flags thing... The Brexit Broadcasting Corporation's bias on full show.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2vl2nrn9zo

"A flagger, I believe, is somebody trying to rekindle a bit of British pride," says Billy Cooper, a roofer from south-west London.

The 38-year-old from Carshalton says he is part of a group of 30 people who have been attaching Union flags to lampposts in the borough of Sutton.

"It's the country's flag, it's the flag that we're all united under and people shouldn't be ashamed of it," he says. "It's not taboo to be British, we should be proud to be British."

A lamp post on a suburban high street with a hanging flower basket and a Union flag. Shop fronts are in the background.
Union flags now line the High Street in Sutton
Mr Cooper said his group decided to erect flags in Sutton after seeing social media posts of people doing similar things in their area.

"Ever since we started it, we've had people come up and give us donations, we've had people cheering us - not just white British people, people from all different backgrounds," he said.

"We're not hiding ourselves, we're not masked up, we're not screaming and shouting when we're doing it. We're doing it openly, in front of everyone."

Union flags and St George's flags have been appearing in communities across the country and have divided opinion.

Some view these unofficial displays as a patriotic gesture, while others regard them as a challenge to the presence of asylum seekers and of people not born in the UK more generally.

In Sutton, the local council has said the flag is a symbol of civic pride and unity and it would continue to fly the national flag from public buildings. It added that unauthorised flags on public property would be removed.

But then someone on bluesky found his facebook.... And he's a state. Clear racist.
https://www.facebook.com/login/?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F100077521806292%2F

Same as what they do with Farage really. Just report his crap completely straight.

There's about 65-70,000 asylum seekers in other temporary housing. It's because we've run out of space that we're also putting up 30,000+ in hotels.

I don't think it's a case of it would be good. I think it's essential. Either we resolve the issue on our terms or someone from the right wins and imposes their solution good and hard.

And I think the US is what this looks like. Crossings on the Southern border are down hugely - to their lowest levels since the 60s. As with significantly more protectionist trade policy - this will be the new normal and there will be no return to the status quo ante.

I'd also add that in Europe I think we are doing the really nasty stuff already in the deals with Tunisia, Libyan warlords and Turkey. We just like to cloak migrants being picked up before the can get to the coast and (according to credible reports) dumped in the desert in pious talk rather than acknowledging what it is: a bloodier version of the Trump-El Salvador deal.

This is where we're missing the next step, of stopping people from going to Libya et al in the first place.
Where are the campaigns telling Sub Saharan Africans how bad life actually is in the UK? - I've mentioned before the chat I had with some Rwandan teachers where they were genuinely shocked to hear how expensive things were in Europe and how little teachers were paid, and that they were actually financially considerably better off at home.
Why aren't we doing more to spread the word of how bad the crossing is?
Maybe not one to be expected right this instant, and rather more one for Europe than the UK, but also how about encouraging development in African countries?- link standards of democracy and human rights to favourable trade deals.

At the moment Labour are leaning too far into the right wing approach. Thinking you can just make higher walls to stop the problem. They need some of the left wing approach too of seeking to prevent it even being a problem. At least to talk about it (given the other issues of the day).

Your political opponents will always attack you but it's a bit like saying you can cut waiting lists but they'll never be low enough. That's true but your assumption is you can win back most people by delivering what they want and if we're writing off 30-35% of the country and irrevocably Reform then we're already screwed.

If we're continuing to boost up asylum and turn it into this overly important issue then that is fighting on ground of Reform's choosing. Its a mistake to go too deep into this. Damage can be limited but Labour will never win.
The focus should be on delivering what people want in areas where Reform doesn't have a hope in hell of competing.


edit- just read a fact today. Immigration is down by half in the past year.... but politics has moved the other way.

(If I was being cynical I'd say that I suspect it's a fantastic way to pad the stats to arrest people for some bad tweets and that the increase seems to coincide exactly with the decline in other measures of police effectiveness - but also with the downsizing of forces and Cressida Dick's strategy )

yeah the doubling in 5 years does make it appear so. Guess the paperwork is easy too. "Reason for arrest: Was mean on the internet. "

Burglars tend not to live stream their crimes.
People posting "Kill the transgenders" have kindly provided the evidence.
It does seem logical why these twitter-crimes, as much as they are generally far less bad, seem to get hit more often than "real crimes".

Though I'd also raise the point that this is just the tip of the ice berg. A tiny fraction of a fraction of stuff on twitter faces any consequence. I'd wager odds are good the amount of twitter-hate that gets prosecuted is nothing next to the more conventional crimes people moan about.

[Gups]

As reported by the Times, I should say

Are you sure that is the reason he was arrested? Or is the Times reporting on what information is currently publicly available and making an assumption?

No. How can I be sure?

You said that was the reason he was arrested at the airport.  But that might not be the reason.

The police said he was arrested for posts on X and his bail condition is that he does not post on X. So I think we can reasonably assume that posting on X was the reason he was arrested. We don't know for certain what posts he was arrested for. I copied and pasted the ones the Times say he was arrested for but obviously only the police and he/his legal team would know for sure.

[crazy canuck]

That's my point.

[Sheilbh]

This has grown into a bit of a story now - so the Met Chief has given some details and it sounds like it was definitely one of those tweets - and not the Communications Act.

Rowley said he was arrested "in relation to allegations of inciting violence [...] The officers involved in the arrest had reasonable grounds to believe an offence had been commutted under the Public Order Act."

He went on to say that the legislation "dictates that a threat to punch someone from a protected group could be an offence".

Edit: Oh and Rowley explicitly said it was for posts on X.

He has said there are challenges for the police in applying this legislation and called for greater clarity and common sense - basically more of a steer to focus on "genuine threats of physical violence against an identified person or group".  But as he said the guidance from successive government is that these types of complaints (particularly as they involve hate crimes/protected groups) are recorded and investigated. Police are "obliged to follow all lines of inquiry" in these cases - because successive governments with good intentions. This is also the stuff that has attracted a lot of attention from a free speech perspective of the UK recording and police keeping records of "non-crime hate incidents" (something I've got mixed view on).

I didn't agree with all of his comments but I was actually slightly heartened by Wes Streeting saying this - because I think this is a problem we have (I've banged on about it in this thread) of legislators passing laws with good intentions but that then have all sorts of problems as actual pieces of legislation. It's sort of performing law making:

One thing I would say, because it's always easy for people to criticise the police, the police enforce the laws of the land that we as legislators provide. So if we're not getting the balance right then that's something that we all have to look at and consider ... If the police are enforcing things that we think are a waste of time or a distraction from more important things, that's on us to sort out.
[...]
And honestly, this is why sometimes when we have debates in parliament, it can be quite tricky when campaigners are saying vote for this clause or that clause, because often people legislate with good intentions, but they also have to be mindful of unintended consequences.

On the armed police point - I think that's true but also a total red herring in this whole story as I could be wrong but I think the airport police are always armed? I think it's the one place in the UK you will routinely see armed police is going through an airport. So if you are arrested for whatever reason at an airport - whether this or shoplifting at Boots - it will involve armed police.

[garbon]

Wes Streeting is odious

[Valmy]

Was he really arrested for suggesting that transwomen should be kicked in the groin for being in women's bathrooms? I usually agree with the UK and Canada on most things but I think their well meaning efforts to limit calls to violence and other extreme speech do more harm than good.

I don't think he was literally demanding kicks in groins happen. More that he was doing his little transpanic fantasy of evil men pretending to be women and sneaking in women's restrooms so they could...pee near a ciswoman or something. Whatever violent degradations that for some reason can only be done in a restroom and not in the hundreds of other places a ciswoman might run into a transwoman in their weird imaginations.

Just how many rapes and abuses of women do these weirdos think having women's restrooms prevent? I am going to guess basically none. If somebody is assaulting a woman, her going into the woman's restroom is not going to create some kind of magical forcefield around her. I guess it only applies to the very narrow band of criminals who have no problem committing major felonies, but breaking the unofficial social contract of bathroom etiquette goes too far.