This is an article from the Winter 2025 Civitas Examiner (Volume 2, No. 4) and was written by one of our students, Lucy M. The opinions expressed herein do not reflect those of Civitas other than respect for the value of open dialogue. To read more Civitas Examiner stories or to submit your own, click here.
On Sept. 1, 2025, during Labor Day, the well-known British comedian and political commentator Graham Linehan was arrested for suspicion of inciting violence when he attempted to board his flight to Arizona. The arrest was made by five armed officers at Heathrow Airport and was in response to a series of tweets Linehan had posted months earlier.
The specific tweet in question, dated April 20, 2025, read: “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops, and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.” In a later blog post, Linehan clarified that the tweet was not intended as a call for physical harm, but rather a “serious point made with a joke.” He stated that men who enter women’s spaces are abusers and that the comment was a sarcastic remark about the height difference between men and women.
Following his arrest, Linehan was ordered to stay off Twitter and was scheduled for a further interview. Some people have stated that this restriction on his social media use is problematic, given that the UK justice system is based on the principle of “innocent until proven guilty.”
U.S. Officials Condemn Arrest
The arrest has drawn criticism from several U.S. officials, including Representative Ro Khanna. Khanna condemned the use of five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer for tweets, stating that it was a disproportionate response in a country where other serious crimes, such as pedophilia, knife crime, and the assault of women, reportedly go unaddressed. He called the entire arrest “an offense to anyone who supports free speech.”
The article notes that this incident is one of many similar cases that have drawn opposition from commentators and officials, with many U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance, voicing concerns about UK laws such as the Online Safety Act and the Communications Act (2003).
The Online Safety Act is a British law designed to regulate what is said on public domains to protect individuals, while the Communications Act governs all forms of broadcasting and online communication.
What do the people say?
The opinions on this situation vary from person to person. Some say that he was right to be arrested because they claim this is hate speech, which has real-world consequences. Others believe that this was a problematic infringement on freedom of speech in the United Kingdom, that he was arrested for having a different opinion. Some notable people have weighed in their opinions. For example, J.K Rowling, the author of the hit series, Harry Potter, commented on this situation, posting on X, “What the f— has the UK become? This is totalitarianism. Utterly deplorable.”
