British comedian and screenwriter Graham Linehan is familiar with the government suppression of speech. He was arrested last fall for "offensive" online posts when five armed police officers met Linehan's plane at London's Heathrow Airport. The situation was so stressful that Linehan ended up in the hospital with elevated blood pressure.
He wasn't the first Brit to be crushed under the Orwellian boot of the U.K.'s speech laws, and he won't be the last. The Trump administration, and especially Vice President Vance, have been incredibly vocal and critical about Europe's suppression of free speech, much to the dismay of European politicians.
Democrats would love to institute such restrictions in America. Kamala Harris ran on a platform of censoring social media, particularly X, after lamenting that Elon Musk was able to communicate with millions of people without oversight. Her running mate, Tim Walz, said that "hate speech" and "disinformation" weren't protected by the First Amendment and supported the creation of a "hate speech registry" in Minnesota. Among the things that could land you on that registry? Expressing support for J.K. Rowling, because of her "anti-trans" views.
So the GOP House Judiciary Committee had Linehan testify about the suppression of free speech in the U.K.
🚨🚨🚨British police arrested a non-UK citizen arriving from the United States for his online speech
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) February 4, 2026
Graham Linehan is an Irish comedy writer who tweeted jokes critical of transgender ideology while in the United States.
When he flew to London, Linehan was arrested at Heathrow… pic.twitter.com/p7vi5t7AOY
"Thank you for this opportunity," Linehan said. "I spent 30 years writing comedy for British television. It was a career I loved, but it ended when I began noticing that women were losing their livelihoods, their social circles, and even their freedoms for defending rights."
"I looked into what these women were saying and could find nothing wrong with any of it. They believed, as I do, that single sex spaces are essential for women's privacy, dignity, and safety," Linehan continued. "They believed that children should not undergo experimental medical treatment that ravages their health and shortens their lives. They believed that women have a right to fair sport."
"These were not extreme positions, but for holding them I became the target of a series of harassment campaigns that cost me my career, my marriage, and eventually drove me from my homeland," Linehan said. "For a decade, the British police have harassed me for expressing views that the majority of the public share. In ten years, not one person — not the police who arrested me, not the colleagues who condemned me, not the friends who turned away — has told any of us what we did wrong."
"Our accusers do not deal in arguments. No one is able to point to the flaws in our analysis. We have simply been punished for objecting to fashionable, yet incoherent, orthodoxies," Linehan said. "When I could no longer make a living writing comedy, I returned to journalism, which was my first profession. I interviewed canceled women on my YouTube channel, covering stories the BBC refused to touch. On my Substack, my colleague published a weekly roundup of outrages. We called it 'The War on Women.' We were never at a loss for stories."
"This committee is here to discuss the threats to free speech in Europe," Linehan continued, "but I briefly want to touch on the forms of quiet censorship that don't require state suppression, for the state has learned to let others do its work. When employers fire workers for protected speech, when banks close accounts, when publishers drop authors, when platforms suspend users, the government's hands stay clean. The censorship happens; the state didn't do it. In Britain, we have discovered you can have formal free speech, and no free speech at all."
"I want everyone to understand that gender ideology and free speech cannot coexist," Linehan warned. "You can hear the lie in the very language: trans woman meaning man, trans man meaning woman. Trans healthcare meaning the opposite of healthcare. Trans rights meaning men's demands. An ideology that tells lesbians they are bigoted for not accepting male partners is not progressive, it is homophobic."
"I will bring this home to Washington for a second," Linehan said. "Right now, a man named Hobby Bingham, who calls himself Princess Zoee Marie Andromeda Love, is a registered sex offender in this country. He raped a 12-year-old girl. He was transferred to the Washington Correctional Center for Women, where he raped a developmentally disabled female inmate. This is not happening in Britain. This is happening here. These are the policies we are being asked to accept. And just as in the United Kingdom, those who refuse pay with their livelihoods, their reputations, their peace of mind."
"Finally, I am asking the committee to do three things," Linehan said. "First, use every diplomatic lever you have to pressure the British government to implement its own Supreme Court ruling. Women just won a landmark case confirming that sex means biological sex. The guidance to enforce it has been written. And the Minister for Women and Equalities has blocked it for months, calling it trans-exclusive. If the British government can ignore its own Supreme Court to appease gender activists, so can yours. Please make it clear that America is watching."
"Second, put pressure on the Irish government to reopen the conversation it never had. In 2015, while Irish people were celebrating their vote for marriage equality, the Gender Recognition Act was quietly passed. No public consultation, no referendum, no women's rights organizations consulted. The public did not know what they were signing up for. They do now. The consequences are visible across Irish life: men in women's prison, men in women's sports, children taught lies in their schools. Ireland is my country of birth; its women and girls deserve the debate that they were denied."
"Third, recognize that free speech is not preserved simply by declining to arrest people," Linehan continued. "People from all walks of life are being silenced by the institutions that license and employ them. We need new whistleblower protections for the digital age. If the government will not defend dissenters from institutional retaliation and mob rule, then what is the First Amendment for? That's not an abstract question. The women who lost their careers, the children who lost their health, the athletes who lost fair competition. They did not have a voice in the decisions that failed them. I am asking you to give them one."
Editor’s Note: Here at Townhall, we’ve been dealing with real government suppression of free speech for YEARS. Despite the threats and consequences, we refuse to go silent and remain committed to delivering the truth.
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