Left image – Wikimedia Commons: VancePortrait
US diplomats have personally interviewed five pro-life activists on a fact-finding mission to assess the erosion of free speech in the UK. The White House has become increasingly troubled by the arrests of UK citizens for the “crime” of silent prayer and offering to help women in crisis pregnancies.
A team of US State Department diplomats was sent to the UK recently after concerns were raised about the erosion of free speech in Britain.
US officials were especially concerned by the arrests of pro-life activists, many also being Christians, who have been charged with breaching buffer zones around abortion facilities. In some cases, individuals have been found guilty of praying silently inside their heads.
Diplomats met with several such UK citizens, including Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, Adam Smith-Connor, Livia Tossici-Bolt, Rose Docherty and Father Sean Gough.
The team is expected to report back to President Donald Trump after the completion of their fact-finding mission.
Samuel Samson, a senior adviser, led the team from the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL). A part of its mission was reportedly to “affirm the importance of freedom of expression in the UK and across Europe”.
The DRL recently stated that “US-UK relations share a mutual respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
“However, as Vice-President Vance has said, we are concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom. It is important that the UK respect and protect freedom of expression.”
In February, JD Vance condemned the persecution of pro-life Christians in the UK.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Vance cited the case of Adam Smith-Connor who was arrested and charged for silently praying for his dead son outside an abortion facility in Bournemouth. Smith-Connor was later found guilty.
“I wish I could say that this was a fluke, a one-off, crazy example of a badly written law being enacted against a single person. But no…” Vance said. “The backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons, in particular, in the crosshairs.”
The State Department was also “concerned” by the case of Livia Tossici-Bolt who was later found guilty of breaching the same buffer zone in Bournemouth by holding a sign that read, “Here to talk, if you want to.”
It has also been reported that Prime Minister Keir Starmer was warned by Trump’s State Department that there would be no trade deal with the US if the UK continued to criminalise pro-life free speech.
Buffer zones of 150m were imposed across England and Wales last year. Subsequent Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) guidance states that silent prayer is “not necessarily” criminal, though the zones outlaw activities that are said to “influence” a woman’s abortion decision.
In Scotland, buffer zones of 200m are also in force. Grandmother Rose Docherty, who also spoke with US officials, was the first person to be arrested under the Scottish buffer zones law, which might also prohibit prayer inside the home.
Docherty said she is “willing to go to prison on the issue because I am unshakeably convinced that nobody should be criminalised for a peaceful offer to speak on any public land in Britain”.
The pensioner was arrested in February for holding a sign that read, “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want”, within a buffer zone around Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
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