The Hunting of Allison Pearson

British journalist Allison Pearson awoke Remembrance Sunday morning to a knock on her door from Essex police. Officers informed her that she was under investigation for a now-deleted tweet posted over a year before that qualified as a hate incident. When Pearson asked which tweet, the police refused to tell her. When asked who had accused her, they said the complainant was not an “accuser” but a “victim” and thus protected by legal anonymity. At the time, Pearson claims, police informed her they were investigating her under Britain’s new and relatively vague “non-crime hate incident” code.

 The Essex police have since responded in a statement issued to the BBC that “at no stage did officers tell [Pearson] the investigation was related to a non-crime hate incident.” And some internet sleuths have unearthed what they believe to be the offending tweet. In it, police are shown standing next to two men holding what appears to be the flag of the Pakistan political party PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf). The text portion of that tweet is below.

The sleuth in question, Ben Sixsmith (online editor of The Critic Magazine), has questioned the identity of the “Allison pearson” tweeting here. As of this writing, it is unclear whether this tweet is from the Allison Pearson arrested by Essex Police or a retweet of the original by another Allison Pearson.

Pearson’s arrest is part of an alarming trend in Britain in which private citizens and comedians alike have felt the long arm of the law reach for them in response to public expression.

London police arrested more than 30 people for posting video related this summer’s riots in Britain. While a few of these received criminal prosecution for encouraging violence, the majority were citizens who merely found themselves caught up in the civil unrest and switched on their video phones. Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned: “I guarantee you will regret taking part in this disorder whether directly or those whipping up this action online.” Most alarmingly, police and politicians indicated a willingness to extend heir investigations beyond British territory to include US citizens commenting from abroad.

Police have also visited Christians who have protested various Pride Month developments on social media, like 51 year-old army veteran Darren Brady, who they arrested in 2022 for re-tweeting a meme first posted by British celebrity Laurence Fox of Pride flags arranged in a swastika pattern.

Just this month in London, feminist author Julie Bindel received a visit from police in response to a complaint received from a transgender man in Holland regarding a tweet of hers from over a year ago. When asked which tweet, police refused to identify it. Ms. Bindel then “sent the police packing” from her home and has refused to apologize for tweeting her opinion of trans issues, particularly as they impact women’s rights. Bindel described her interaction with police as “Orwellian.”

These are just three examples of a growing trend in British life in which opinions expressed online result in visits from the police. Sometimes the constables can be accompanied by social workers or psychologists. This is particularly alarming given the historic use of punitive psychiatry as a means to quell dissent in totalitarian states.

According to several sources and commentators, UK authorities made more than 3300 arrests during 2023 for social media posts. By contrast, Russia made only 400 arrests were  that year for similar offenses. Ironically, this free speech crackdown, which began under a Tory (Conservative) government, has been gaining traction and speed under the newer, more left-leaning Labour government of Keir Starmer.

The political principles that inform America’s Declaration of Independence and First Amendment have their origin in England–specifically, with John Locke’s philosophy of natural rights. Freedom of speech, while eagerly adopted by America, is fundamentally a British value. Ironically, in the birthplace of the English language, free speech now finds itself under unprecedented political pressure more typical of East Germany than London’s East End.

With a host of social media platforms available to the British public, the civil authorities now face a challenge where regulation of speech is concerned. Lacking the robust protection of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, citizens in countries like Britain and Canada have no general right to free speech but must content themselves with the more nebulous and easily subverted “freedom of expression.” We have lately seen the guarantees of this freedom eroded by state actors, as it was in Canada with the invocation of the Emergencies Act to violently crush peaceful protesters in Ottawa and now in Britain by a knock on the door from a copper with an iPhone in hand.