Hollywood Must Speak Out Against England’s Free Speech Assault
Graham Linehan's shocking arrest should rouse celebrities from partisan slumber
The Hollywood press downplays stories that don’t fit “the narrative.”
Example?
Stephen Colbert gets canned for costing CBS a reported $40 million a year. Media outlets decried the decision, suggesting President Donald Trump got the far-Left host fired … without evidence.
Trump is Hitler 2.0, or so The Narrative goes.
Michael Rapaport gets canceled for being a pro-Israeli Jewish artist. Mostly crickets from the Legacy Media. The pro-Palestinian Left must be protected, so the story got little coverage.
This time, the outrage proved too big to cover up.
The UK has arrested a COMEDIAN now for @X posts that the British government found to be criminally offensive to transgenders. Here’s Graham Linehan on his arrest. The UK has no free speech. The feelings of transgenders & migrants come before the rights of everyone else. pic.twitter.com/vkK4OAQ0Zk
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) September 2, 2025
British comic Graham Linehan’s arrest this week over allegedly anti-trans social media posts proved so shocking even Hollywood press outlets covered it. They didn’t wait a day or two until the story calmed down, either.
Both Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter shared the news mere hours after it exploded on social media. And this is far from an isolated incident.
Free speech is under furious attack in England.
Wow. You gotta listen to this.
“It really is 1984, we are living it now”
In the UK, they are looking to curb speech in Pubs by “banning customers from discussing controversial topics” in case the conversation you are talking about offends someone.
This is absolutely mad.
— Kosher (@koshercockney) January 14, 2025
It’s a massive story, part of free speech’s shocking decline in the U.K. And, it should go without saying, the story has ramifications for Western culture, the arts and freedom in general.
So where is Hollywood?
The stars have been raging against President Trump for months, calling him a dictator who will snuff out free speech. Certainly, they’ll rise up en masse to decry Linehan’s arrest.
No? Call it unlikely at best.
Celebrities have mostly stood down as woke bylaws and Cancel Culture scolds pummeled speech over the past decade. Why? It’s partly due to fear. They also saw mostly conservatives being censored and didn’t feel compelled to rally to their side.
Is there another explanation?
Need examples? Stars decried against so-called book bans but ignored sensitivity readers erasing passages from Ian Fleming, Agatha Christie and Roald Dahl.
They said nothing as artists self-censored to avoid professional blowback. Some even memory-holed their own work rather than defend free expression.
British stars should be speaking up the loudest right now, right? But are they?
One Brit is doing just that.
J.K. Rowling is an old-school liberal who holds free speech dear. And she’s not staying silent about the current crisis. (apologies for the adult language)
What the fuck has the UK become? This is totalitarianism. Utterly deplorable. https://t.co/CRl2n9rorh
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 2, 2025
British comedian Ricky Gervais, a free speech warrior, posted this message yesterday but hasn’t addressed the matter directly on his X account (yet).
If you don’t believe in free speech for people who you disagree with, and even hate for what they stand for, then you don’t believe in free speech. pic.twitter.com/wMZoQbHZxj
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) September 1, 2025
Ex-Mumford and Sons musician Winston Marshall is aghast at Linehan’s arrest, too.
Comedian Graham Linehan @Glinner arrested by 5 armed police officers upon arrival at London Heathrow airport on account of 3 recent posts on X.
Link
— Winston Marshall (@MrWinMarshall) September 2, 2025
Will their left-leaning peers join the fight or stay on the sidelines, hoping that the censors will come for them last?
he’s from Ireland, not British. Just lives there now.
What the liberals don’t seem to realize is even THEY may be “canceled” when they step “out of line” with the wokesters.
Hollywood knows nothing about true justice and morality, they only portray them on TV.
This is the dystopia the US almost had happen in the last election. The UK is lost and it seems parts of the EU also. Unfortunately the US has an astounding number of low information voters that vote blue no matter what. If the US falls in the next election, this will all come to America. They are already working hard to lock up the internet and the megacorps are happy to help.
A friend of mine’s wife is a school teacher and a democrat NPC to the core. She likes to bait me on being a republican. But when I press her on it, she gets angry, folds, and says she doesn’t want to talk about it. This is the left in a nutshell. They can’t think logically. They have embraced doublethink. Scary people with absolutely no critical thinking skills.
I’ve experienced this very situation … a lot. And it’s scary.
Mark Steyn likes to say that the Left doesn’t want to win the argument, it wants to shut down the argument.
What we need is the police to start refusing.
So they can get fired and arrested too, not going to happen. They’ll use the usual out, “I was just followed orders”.