UK Cannot Call Itself A Free Country After Arresting Comedian For ‘Transphobic’ Joke

United Kingdom officials arrested Irish comedian Graham Linehan over social media posts the government deemed "transphobic."

Linehan says armed police officers approached him the moment he stepped off a flight from Arizona to London on Monday.

"The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting. They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest for three posts on X," he wrote in an op-ed for The Free Press. "In a country where pedophiles escape prison, where knife crime is out of control, the state had mobilized five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer for these three posts."

The Sun later obtained the following audio of the arrest:

"You published a post on X that was deemed to be intended to instil hatred and incite violence," one officer is heard saying.

"What post?" Linehan asked.

"I can't tell you that," the officer responded.

On Substack, Linehan said the post in question was a joke about punching a trans-identified man in a female-only space. As part of his bail conditions, the comedian says he is banned from using X.

Linehan defended the joke as both satire and commentary on concerns about the dangers of men in female-only spaces.

"Later, during the interview itself, the tone shifted. The officer conducting it asked about each of the terrible tweets in turn, with the sort of earnest intensity usually reserved for discussing something serious like … oh, I dunno — crime?" Linehan wrote. "I explained that the ‘punch’ tweet was a serious point made with a joke. Men who enter women’s spaces ARE abusers and they need to be challenged every time."

Irish writer and director, Graham Linehan, wears a sandwich board reading 'There's no such thing as a Transgender Child' as he arrives at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London on September 4, 2025, where he is due to face trial accused of harassing a transgender activist. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP) (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images)

Regardless, the fact that one of America’s closest allies is jailing comedians for jokes is chilling. There should be no place for arresting people for their jokes and opinions on social media anywhere in the West. And yet, it's happening right in the UK and in Germany, where police are conducting raids for similar comments on social media.

These are authorized measures motivated by partisan politics. Would the UK jail a comedian for making a joke about punching a straight white man? Almost certainly not.

Adding to the concern, U.S. outlets like CBS News have recently praised European speech laws.

This also underscores why OutKick took it so seriously when the Biden administration pressured Facebook to remove memes during the COVID pandemic. Censorship is the first step toward authoritarianism, and the U.S. took that step when Biden was supposedly in charge.

On a fundamental level, there is no freedom without free speech. If you do not have the right to express whatever opinion you want without facing consequences from the people in charge, you don't live in a free country.

By that definition, the UK is no longer a free nation.