In the United Kingdom, police investigate people for expressing political dissent, even as serious crimes go unsolved. 76% of burglaries go unsolved. 89% of all rapes go unsolved. 56% of all shoplifting goes unsolved. 75% of all car thefts go unsolved. As the Free Speech Union notes, “Greater Manchester Police fails to solve 75% of shoplifting cases” that are reported, “yet two officers found time to visit a grandmother over a Facebook post criticising Labour politicians. No further action was taken, but the chilling effect of the knock on the door is clear.”
The Daily Mail says that England now has “thought police…As thousands of criminals go uninvestigated, detectives call on a grandmother. Her crime? She went on Facebook to criticise Labour councillors at the centre of the ‘Hope you Die’ WhatsApp scandal.”
“In a chilling clampdown on free speech, two police officers pay a visit to a grandmother – simply for criticising Labour politicians on Facebook. Detectives were last night accused of acting like East Germany‘s feared Stasi secret police for quizzing Helen Jones over her calls for the resignation of local councillors embroiled in the WhatsApp scandal exposed by The Mail on Sunday….Mrs Jones says she has effectively been silenced by the officers, as she was intimidated by them calling at her door and is too terrified to post on social media again.”
As the Daily Mail notes, this is just the latest in a series of cases in which British cops have investigated people for social media posts, such as newspaper columnist Allison Pearson, writer Julie Bindel, and ex-police officer Harry Miller. “The two plain-clothes officers arrived at Mrs Jones’s home and demanded to talk to her after she commented on the offensive messages shared in a Labour WhatsApp group” that the Daily Mail publicized in an article this month. That article triggered the removal of health minister Andrew Gwynne and the suspension of member of parliament Oliver Ryan and 11 Labour council members.
“Police knocked on her door in Stockport within 48 hours of receiving a complaint, in contrast to how they have responded to other crime reports. Mrs Jones, a school administrator, said police failed to investigate a spate of car thefts in the surrounding streets last year. Greater Manchester Police has one of the highest crime rates in Britain and fails to solve almost three out of four shoplifting incidents.”
The visit from police came days after The Daily Mail published an article about how Gwynne, a member of parliament, “posted a vile message to Labour colleagues on a WhatsApp group saying he hoped one elderly constituent, who didn’t vote for the party, would die before the next election.” He posted the message after the elderly constituent sent a letter to Stockport council member David Sedgwick complaining about poor garbage collection.
While cracking down on speech, England’s Labour Party earlier turned a blind eye to many rapes. In municipalities controlled by Britain’s left-leaning Labour Party, gangs of Pakistani rapists raped thousands of girls for years. Local officials in Labour-controlled towns like Rotherham turned a blind eye to those rapes, year after year, partly to avoid looking “racist” and avoid inflaming “racial tensions.”
