Will America Rescue the United Kingdom Again?

By Gavin Ashenden 

THE STREAM

April 11, 2025

We were warned that the Left was conducting a long march through the institutions in order to establish dystopian Marxist outcomes, but it was a surprise to see how quickly the success has come in the last 20 years. Equality of outcome and anti-Christian persecution have walked hand-in-hand.

Suddenly, in the United Kingdom, freedom of speech has been sucked out of the public space by a Leftist government which is only too happy to express its totalitarian ambitions. The oppression against Christians that has taken place in the last few months alone is breathtaking.

Let’s begin with a Christian nurse named Jennifer Melle. She has just been suspended from the National Health Service and effectively lost her job. Why?

Because a patient who had been sent to her ward from a prison wanted to leave the hospital. But before that could happen, he needed to have a catheter removed from his penis.

However, Patient X – who was in prison for being a pedophile — presented and identified himself as a female.

Speaking to the doctor on the phone outside Patient X’s room, discussing the biological dynamics of removing the catheter, Melle referred to Patient X as “mister” and “he.”

“This was a real-life medical scenario that required accurate terminology to avoid any doubt between medical professionals,” she later explained.

Yet Patient X objected.

“Imagine if I called you a n++*****” he told Melle, who is black. “How about I call you a n*****? “Yes, black n****.” He then lunged at her, despite being restrained, and promised he would make an official complaint for being “misgendered.”

As a result, Melle was suspended from her job, and then fired from the National Health Service.

Dr. Livia Tossici-Bolt has worked as a research scientist. Now retired, she is 64.

Some time ago, she was standing in a buffer zone near an abortion clinic, silently holding a hand-made sign which simply said: “Here to talk. If you want to.”

As in the U.S., the British state is on hyperalert for any kind of perceived “harassment” of people approaching abortion facilities. This one is surrounded by a buffer zone in which actions such as protesting, displaying distressing images, or engaging in other forms of demonstration that might influence or intimidate patients and staff are illegal.

Tossici-Bolt’s sign was carefully crafted to simply facilitate a conversation if the other person took the initiative, but she was still arrested and charged with violating the public space protection order (PSPO).

Once in court, the judge said it is a fact that “the sign made no reference to pregnancy, abortion, or religious matters.” One of the police who arrested her “he did not witness her intimidating or harassing any individual.”

Nonetheless, the judge still found Tossici-Bolt guilty of violating a PSPO and ordered her to pay a £20,000 fine.

This astonishing sum of money represents the price the state is prepared to extort from any citizen who challenges the complete ban on speech it doesn’t like.

Equally damaging to personal liberty and free speech is the way the state has persecuted a Christian woman named Isabel Vaughan-Spruce. She was arrested several times for standing and discreetly praying in abortion clinic buffer zones. She sued the government for false imprisonment — and won.

Nonetheless the police continue to harass her. She was rearrested only a few weeks ago – this time with police saying that because she is now a publicly recognizable person with notorious views on abortion, her face alone is a form of harassment to those who feel differently.

This means the police have assumed the power to effectively dictate where a Christian with a public profile can walk or even appear — or where they cannot appear, which potentially constitutes a form of house arrest.

When Vice President JD Vance made his powerful speech at the Munich Security Conference in March, he warned Europe in general and the UK in particular that the State Department is keeping an eye on the British government, and that there can be no free trade without guarantees of free speech.

This warning comes at a time when the left-wing government in Britain has brought the nation to the brink of economic collapse. British politicians could dismiss Vance’s warning as unpleasant rhetoric — a threat they do not have to act on.

But things are about to get a lot worse. The Labour government is drafting legislation that will unjustly and illogically turn any form of disapproval of Islam into a racist hate crime. Given that Islam is neither defined nor confined by race, this prospect is as contradictory as it is repressive. It will effectively create a specific blasphemy law that protects Islam — and only Islam, making any criticism of the religion potentially criminal.

The government is also about to implement an “Online Safety Act” which will criminalize on-line “hate speech.” It requires no imagination at all that what the state deems “hate speech” will include the language of Christian ethics and belief.

Christians in the United Kingdom are not posturing when they express sincere gratitude to the US government for its concern for them. But more than that, we are convinced that only serious economic pain inflicted on both the country and the government will create sufficient leverage to protect our freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.

Once again, in our struggle with tyranny and the threat of the loss of our freedom and Christian culture, we appeal to Americans’ fortitude, generosity and courage to come to our aid in a desperate and dangerous moment in history. 

Gavin Ashenden is associate editor of the Catholic Herald. Formerly a priest of the Church of England, and subsequently a continuing Anglican bishop, he was appointed Chaplain to the Queen from 2008 until his resignation in 2017.