Nigel Farage compared Britain to North Korea in an appearance in front of US politicians before a planned lunch with President Trump.
Addressing the US Congress in Washington on Wednesday, the Reform UK Party leader said that the country has sunk into an “awful authoritarian situation”.
“I come from the land of Magna Carta, the mother of parliaments. It doesn’t give me any great joy to be sitting in America describing the awful authoritarian situation we have sunk into,” he told the House judiciary committee during a three-hour debate on freedom of speech. “At what point did we become North Korea?”
He used the hearing to draw attention to the recent cases of Graham Linehan and Lucy Connolly.
Connolly was jailed after calling for people to “set fire” to asylum hotels “for all I care” on the social media platform X after the murder of three young girls at a dance class in Southport. She was released at the end of August after serving less than half of her 31-month prison sentence.
Linehan, an Irish comedy writer, was arrested this week by five armed police officers at Heathrow airport over a succession of anti-trans tweets.
In his opening statement, Farage said Linehan’s arrest “could happen to any American man or woman who has said something online that the British government doesn’t like”.
Lucy Connolly was jailed last year
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE POLICE
Graham Linehan was detained by police over social media posts
IAIN MASTERTON/ALAMY
Farage said he wanted to bring Connolly to the US for his visit but was unable to because of “restrictions” since her arrest.
He said she put out a tweet that was “intemperate and wrong” after the “savage murder” of “three beautiful young girls”. However, he argued that her imprisonment was disproportionate.
At times during the hearing, Farage clashed with senior Democrats who accused him of being a “far-right, pro-Putin politician” while Republicans celebrated him as the “probably the future prime minister” of the UK.
Farage said Britain has become an “awful authoritarian” state like North Korea
Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, urged British voters to think twice before voting for a “Trump sycophant”.
He said the Reform leader was “most at home with the autocrats and dictators of the world who are crushing free speech”.
However, with Reform leading Labour by nine points, according to the latest YouGov poll, Darrell Issa, a Republican congressman from California, said Farage was “probably the future prime minister”.
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After Democrats repeatedly drew attention to the fact that Reform has only four MPs in parliament and accused him of being a “fringe” politician, Farage said: “It’s a very big fringe and we’re doing rather well.”
The hearing was ostensibly about the UK’s Online Safety Act, which compels US tech companies to stop children from seeing harmful content on the internet, but the debate widened to include the cases of Connolly and Linehan.
President Trump and Farage in 2019
TIA DUFOUR/THE WHITE HOUSE/PA
Under the Online Safety Act, tech firms such as Facebook and X face fines of 10 per cent of their worldwide revenue if they fail to protect children.
Farage said the 2023 legislation was “designed by Tories with the best of intentions”.
However, he said it was ineffective at protecting children and suggested that phones should be programmed to ban certain apps.
Hank Johnson, a Democrat from Georgia, accused Farage of visiting the US to try to solicit donations from tech companies for Reform.
“You need a lot of money to blow up like the Maga movement?” he asked. “You need money from Elon Musk in order to get elected prime minister of Great Britain?”
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Farage, who is the MP for Clacton, denied he was trying to fundraise, saying that he had been involved in a “public falling out” with Musk.
He also denied that he was trying to convince Trump to impose tariffs on the UK.
In written evidence submitted to the committee, Farage urged US politicians to “declare as US policy that foreign speech restrictions have no effect on Americans acting in the United States and on US-hosted services even if accessed abroad, and instruct the executive to defend this position in diplomacy and trade”.
The Labour Party accused Farage of calling for “economic sanctions” on the UK.
“Nothing could be less patriotic than actively encouraging a foreign power to take action to make the British people poorer,” a Labour Party spokesman said.
Johnson said Farage was arguing “that the citizens of Great Britain should pay a tariff if the tech companies violate the laws of Great Britain”.
However, Farage replied: “I’ve not suggested sanctions at all in any way.”