When it comes to serial liars, there are few as brazen as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who has parlayed his willingness to fib on a constant basis into a leadership position in the Democrat caucus, and he was at it again on Wednesday.
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on free speech in Europe, the former college professor badgered and belittled British politician Nigel Farage, with the ranking member incredibly claiming that the UK didn’t have a “free speech crisis” just days after the arrest of a comedian over posting comments that were critical of transgenders on social media.
Raskin smeared the Reform UK leader as a “far-right, pro-Putin politician” and a “Donald Trump sycophant and wannabe” in his opening statement, a shameless display of grandstanding from the congressman, who was a key figure in the failed impeachments of President Donald J. Trump as well as the defunct J6 committee.
At one point, Raskin presented what some might suggest was an Orwellian defense of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose regime has unleashed Gestapo-style tactics against Brits who are being censored and imprisoned over speech critical of the government, immigrants, and protected demographic groups.
The day after the UK arrested a comedian for making jokes they disliked, Raskin says: “There’s a free speech crisis in America today, but there’s no free speech crisis in Britain!” pic.twitter.com/oR0jdLdxI7
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 3, 2025
“There is a free speech crisis in America today, but there’s no free speech crisis in Britain,” Raskin declared. “U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has not shut down GB News, where Mr. Farage has his own show, just because Mr. Farage has used his airtime to call for banning peaceful protests that he disagrees with.”
Raskin’s remarks come after Irish comic and writer Graham Linehan was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport on Monday on his return from the United States.
Linehan was met by uniformed police officers when he got off the plane and taken into custody, being told that his crime was expressing his opinion in three posts to X. The incident sparked international outrage over the UK’s hostility to free speech, which, despite Raskin’s insistence to the contrary, has been under attack across the pond, in the UK, as well as the rest of the European Union.
“In a country where pedophiles escape sentencing, where knife crime is out of control, where women are assaulted and harassed every time they gather to speak, the state had mobilized five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer for this tweet,” the comic wrote of his persecution.
“In a country where paedophiles escape sentencing, where knife crime is out of control, where women are assaulted and harassed every time they gather to speak, the state had mobilised five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer”.
Stop oppressing your people’s speech while… https://t.co/DECKiJXPTS
— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) September 2, 2025
“At what point did we become North Korea?” Farage asked during the hearing. “I think the Irish comedy writer found that out two days ago at Heathrow Airport. This is a genuinely worrying, concerning, and shocking situation.”
“At what point did we become North Korea?”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage warns the US: Britain is arresting foreign citizens at Heathrow over online speech. Free expression and trade are both at risk. pic.twitter.com/7SULBrfYZe
— Reclaim The Net (@ReclaimTheNetHQ) September 3, 2025
“He’s not even a British citizen. He’s an Irish citizen,” he noted. “This could happen to any American man or woman that goes to Heathrow, that has said things online that the British government and British police don’t like.”
Raskin was half right about there being a “free speech crisis in America,” but it was during the Biden administration when Democrats leveraged their control of the federal government into a chilling crackdown on dissent and the silencing of views contrary to their agenda that would likely have succeeded had Elon Musk not bought Twitter in 2022, restoring free speech to the platform.
“He’s flown to America, to badmouth and talk down our country,” Starmer said before Farage’s testimony, according to Politico. “Worse than that… he’s gone there to lobby the Americans to impose sanctions on this country, which will harm working people. You cannot get more unpatriotic than that. It’s a disgrace.”
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