In a moving article for Quillette about Australia‘s failure to confront rising antisemitism, Jake Pinczewski describes the father-son duo that turned a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach into a pogrom as “vile creatures.”
It’s a good thing he didn’t say that in the United Kingdom, or he might be in jail. In the U.K. and most of the European Union, while free speech extends to crowds chanting “globalize the intifada” and “from the river to the sea,” calling a killer a “creature” can be a crime. Take the case of Jamie Michael. He’s a former Royal Marine and Iraq veteran. He was outraged by Axel Rudakubana’s knife attack in Southport last summer on young girls around his daughters’ ages. Three were killed, and 10 were wounded as they attended a dance workshop.
In the aftermath of the heinous attack, rioting broke out. Michael made a Facebook video in which he called immigrants “psychopaths” and “scumbags,” but instead of calling for violence or revenge, he did the opposite. He urged people to form groups to protect children from “radicalized idiots” and demand elected officials change immigration policy. He also described Rudakubana as a “creature.” Much has been made of the fact that Rudakubana was born in Wales and therefore a U.K citizen. Not so his parents, who immigrated from Rwanda in 2001. Like other first-generation immigrant offspring, Rudakubana became self-radicalized. He was convicted not only for murder and attempted murder but also under the U.K.’s Terrorism Act.
To British authorities, Jamie Michael’s verbiage was also criminal. He was arrested and charged with inciting racial hatred under Section 2 (1) of Britain’s Public Order Act of 1986. Never mind that Michael specifically urged lawful protest. In the U.K., you can be charged for stirring up racial hatred even when that was not your intent. Michael was thus jailed for 17 days before being allowed out on bail. He would likely be in jail today if the Free Speech Union hadn’t stepped in and raised funds for his defense.
The FSU is the brainchild of British journalist Toby Young. He told me of his plans via email during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns to create an organization to defend academic and press freedom. I became a founding member. The FSU not only advocates policies to protect freedom of speech, but more importantly, takes up individual cases and fights for justice in the courts. Toby, now Lord Young of Acton, has also expanded the FSU’s scope to combat the censorship cabal’s tactics, such as de-banking and de-platforming of individuals and organizations.
At trial, a jury acquitted Michael in seventeen minutes.
But his ordeal isn’t over. Seizing on the word “creature,” a local safeguarding board banned him from coaching his daughters’ soccer team, saying he “dehumanized” Rudakubana and therefore is a threat to children. Safeguarding boards in the U.K. are supposed to protect minors from sexual predators, but in Michael’s case, their action appears nakedly political. He’s fighting the ban in court.
Throughout the U.K., Europe, and much of the Anglosphere, free speech is under attack whenever it questions immigration, crime, gender identity, climate alarmism, or any other sacred cow European elites have decreed taboo for criticism. But when unruly mobs take over the streets of London or Amsterdam, police do nothing to stop genocidal and racist chants. They instead tell Jews not to wear religious symbols, to shelter indoors, to stay away from soccer matches and song contests as if they were the instigators of racial hatred.
Average citizens long ago lost the right and means to self-defense in most of Europe and the Anglosphere. What option is left when the police withdraw protection from the mob or homicidal ideologues except to throw bricks or run for cover? And what are we to make of European and Anglosphere leaders such as those in Canada and Australia who recognize a Palestinian state that nowhere exists in order to placate their anti-Israel citizenry?
The prosecution of Jamie Michael is Europe’s existential crisis in a microcosm. Demographic trends such as low birth rates and uncontrolled immigration are altering the political makeup of European countries, especially those former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld derided as “Old Europe.” We glimpsed their impact in European leaders’ tepid responses to Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities. Climate activism and Net-Zero energy policies are bankrupting Europe’s industrial base, damaging its defense production capacity precisely when the continent needs to ramp up its militaries.
Trump’s national security strategy rightly questions whether such governments will be reliable allies in a crisis affecting America. Sure, Australia wants an American alliance to avert it from becoming a Chinese resource colony. Europe wants Americans to defend it against Russian revanchism. In the past, both have been steady partners.
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But will their demographic and political composition prevent their governments from doing so in the future? That’s the question Americans must ask themselves now.
Only European voters and their leaders can answer it. To remain a vital part of the free world’s defense, NATO countries must start by taking bold action to restore individual freedom, curb immigration, and reassert the West’s cultural values. To do so, the U.K. and Europe will need hundreds, maybe thousands, like Toby Young.
John B. Roberts II was a Reagan White House official, international political strategist, and executive producer of the McLaughlin Group. He is an author and artist.
