While claiming to champion free speech, Trump and Vance’s actions both at home and abroad tell a very different story, writes Bremain Chair Sue Wilson MBE for Yorkshire Bylines.
Politicians of all political persuasions acknowledge that freedom of speech is a fundamental human right. But they often disagree on who is allowed to exercise this hard-won civil liberty.
For the far-right – and Donald Trump’s America in particular – the right to free speech is reserved only for those who share the same undemocratic views. While touting the importance of free speech at every opportunity, President Trump, Vice President Vance, and their sidekick Elon Musk have done everything they can to limit opportunities for dissent.
Speak freely, but only if you agree with me
Whether it’s threatening journalists with prosecution, slashing funding for universities that allow peaceful protests, or attacking anyone who tries to protect their First Amendment rights, the Trump government attacks opinions that don’t align with its policy. This is despite Trump declaring, without a hint of irony, in his State of the Union address that he had “stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America”.
One of the latest casualties of Trump’s crackdown on “radical propaganda” is the cancellation of federal funding for the Voice of America. The international news organisation, which reaches hundreds of millions of people worldwide every week, was set up during World War II to counter Nazi propaganda. All 1,300 employees have been put on paid leave. This seems to be part of a broader trend to undermine independent media. But who needs a free, independent press anyway? Certainly not Trump, Vance or Musk.
Perhaps JD Vance could come back to Munich and give everyone in Europe a refresher of his gripping TedX Talk on "freedom of speech". ~AA pic.twitter.com/4pgep2BA1D
— Best for Britain (@BestForBritain) March 4, 2025
Europe in their sights
But the hypocrisy doesn’t stop at US borders. As if the attacks on democracy and freedom at home weren’t bad enough, the US government is also attacking Europe. While restricting the freedom of Americans to express themselves openly, JD Vance accused Europe, while attending a security conference in Munich recently, of depriving its own citizens of freedom of speech. For good measure, Vance also criticised European governments for ignoring the will of the people (now, where have I heard that before?) and for failing to halt the immigration of undocumented people. According to Vance, Europe has retreated from its “most fundamental values – values shared with the USA”.
JD Vance, "The entire idea of Christian civilisation that was formed in Europe"
"Europe is starting to limit the free speech of their own citizens"
"If Germany allows more immigrants come in from countries that are totally culturally incompatible with Germany, Germany will have killed itself"
— Farrukh (@implausibleblog.bsky.social) 15 March 2025 at 15:18
No sooner had Vance attacked European values abroad than the insult was repeated on American soil. When a French researcher was expelled from the States for expressing a “personal opinion” on Trump himself, it sparked a diplomatic row.
The academic, who had his personal laptop and mobile phone confiscated, was on an assignment for the French National Centre for Scientific Research. He was accused of sending “hateful” and “conspiratorial” messages that reflected “hatred towards Trump” and could be “described as terrorism”.
How this fits with the CIA’s definition of terrorism – “the calculated use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective” – is anyone’s guess.
Seems that Trump’s boast to have: “brought free speech back to America” only applies if he agrees with what is being said.
www.lbc.co.uk/world-news/d…
— Otto English (@ottoenglish.bsky.social) 20 March 2025 at 07:49
The UK must avoid making the same mistakes
While the threat to free speech and expression in the UK may not match the insane levels of undemocratic activity in the US, there are some worrying signs. For example, according to Human Rights Watch, the British government is failing to uphold our democratic freedoms, particularly the right to peaceful protest. Furthermore, legislation requiring universities to take “reasonable steps” to promote free speech – the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 – looks likely to be scrapped.
Our own far-right politicians, whether of the Reform UK or Tory variety, have also proven time and again that they are in favour of free speech – but only their own, not that of their opposition. Heaven help any minority or ‘woke’ commentator who expresses an alternative opinion.
Your voice matters. You have the right to say what you think and demand a better world. You also have the right to agree or disagree with those in power, and to express these opinions in peaceful protests.
Freedom of expression is a human right. Everywhere. pic.twitter.com/3k27ubQRHR
— Amnesty International USA (@amnestyusa) September 16, 2024
Freedom of expression is a basic human right that should be defended at all costs. We can only hope that our own government learns the lesson and doesn’t follow the far-right of the US or the UK down an undemocratic path.
Dr Martin Luther King Jr said the ability to speak one’s mind was no less a human right than is freedom from more painful and obvious abuses. Although the French writer and philosopher Voltaire may not actually have coined the phrase, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” it remains the acid test of such freedoms.
Even Musk said, back in 2023, “If we lose freedom of speech, it’s never coming back”. How ironic then that he, Trump and Vance are now trying so hard to take that right away.
We face growing threats to free speech. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves if we can afford to let this right be eroded by those who claim to protect it.
