It’s another wet and windy day in the free speech nation.

In the last couple of weeks we have had NHS surgeons suspended and arrested for posts on social media, we’ve had lads imprisoned for posting memes, military veterans banned from coaching their own daughters football team after social media posts, and now a former international footballer has received a suspended prison sentence for photoshopping a pair of tv presenter’s faces onto the bodies of serial killers Fred and Rose West.

Phew.

Thank goodness the great British justice system is here to protect the people of this country, by throwing the book at folks… for hurty words and memes.

Don’t panic though, the UK hasn’t gone full draconian hellscape, and just started imprisoning everyone.

Sex offenders and paedophiles are still free to roam the streets. We’re not North Korea, y’know!?

Of course this crack down is multi-layered.

It’s about silencing free speech, and normalising prison time for offending people, and what this does in the end, is create a situation where you no longer have to silence free speech or impose prison time for offending people, because people will simply silence themselves through the fear of facing prison time if they don’t.

The sheep becomes their very own sheep dog, and if my goal was to destroy the nation unopposed, I’d want as many people silencing themselves as possible.

As the great British public, we could of course, all put down the faultlines that divide us, and join together as one indomitable force to stand against the destruction of our collective freedoms, and fight for everyone’s right to speak their truths,

But where is the fun in that?

Instead, from where I am sitting, all I can see, with notable exceptions, is people putting their tribalistic allegiances before the freedoms of the population as a whole.

If someone is cancelled, or fired, or even imprisoned for words, then the first thought should not be “But do I align with their view?”, and yet overwhelmingly, it is.

“They said things I didn’t like, so screw them, throw away the key” is one of the most, not only morally absurd, but also moronically short sighted stances to take.

Because by allowing state control of speech to become the norm, you will only ensure that some time down the line, the then even more emboldened state, will be coming for your tongue, too.

It’s not just social media users and self proscribed commentators that are falling into the tribalism trap of ‘not my side, not my problem’, but also organisations whose whole existence is apparently to protect free speech.

The Free Speech Union in the UK claims that freedom of speech is the bedrock where all our other freedoms rest, and I agree with them.

They have done some great work helping people that have been wrongly discriminated against, or punished for exercising their freedom of speech.

However, there seems to be a line, and as it seems to be in many cases, that line is a foreign state 3000 miles away.

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