This Woman Was Just Sent To Prison For Posting A Mean Tweet

Here’s a little thought experiment to kick us off after the long weekend. It’s not a particularly difficult thought experiment, or at least it shouldn’t be. But rest assured, there’s an entire Western country that’s paralyzed by this conundrum at the moment. I’m talking about a country with tens of millions of people, and a supposedly highly developed legal system, that cannot handle this particular hypothetical. So with that dramatic build-up, let’s see how you do with it.

I want you to picture the single worst tweet you can imagine. I don’t mean “worst tweet” as in, an extremely dumb tweet. It’s easy to think of one of those. I mean the “worst tweet” as in, the kind of tweet that poses a threat to civilization as we know it. The kind of tweet that merits the direct involvement of the president of the United States and the entire judicial system. The kind of tweet that judges will punish far more severely than most federal crimes, including the following crimes that I’ll list.

Crime number one: Exposing yourself to a 13-year-old girl, and then stalking her through the streets when she spots you, forcing the girl to bang on the doors of random apartments so that she can hide. Crime number two: publicly threatening to murder an infidel who dares to insult Mohammed. Crime number three: Sexually assaulting a 12-year-old. And crime number four: domestic abuse, including physical abuse, over a three-year-period.

Those are all serious crimes, admittedly. But again, in our little experiment, these offenses pale in comparison to your tweet, of 280-characters or less. Your single tweet will do more damage than any of those horrible crimes, and the judicial system will punish you accordingly. So what would your tweet have to look like, in this scenario?

The problem you may be running into is that, it would seem, literally no tweet could possibly ever be that bad or destructive. And that’s true. Unless maybe it’s a tweet that, say, discloses America’s nuclear launch codes, along with instructions about how to launch the nukes. That might rise to the level we’re discussing. But if that’s the kind of tweet you’re imagining, you didn’t quite nail it. Thanks to our alleged allies in the United Kingdom, we have the definitive answer to this thought experiment.

Here is the tweet that, according to the UK justice system, is so unthinkable and barbaric that it’s worse than assaulting a child:

There it is. If you’re not shaking yet, then according to the British government, you should be. That’s the post that, in the eyes of the UK’s justice system, is worse than physically attacking and stalking children. It’s one of the worst things you can say out loud, or post on social media. It’s basically a nuclear bomb, in tweet format.

WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show

Now, you might think to yourself: That’s it? By the standards of social media, it’s extremely tame. She’s not even directly calling for anyone to commit acts of violence. There is no direct incitement here. She’s saying she wouldn’t care if “other people” committed acts of violence. Every day, by contrast, there are about ten million posts that directly threaten other people, in very specific terms. Ask me how I know. So how exactly is this one post such a big problem?

When you consider the context of the post, that question becomes even more difficult to answer. The tweet was written at 8:30 p.m. on July 29, 2024, by a 41-year-old professional babysitter — called a “child-minder” in the UK — named Lucy Connolly. You can see her in this photo.

She was reacting to the news that, earlier in the day, the son of Rwandan migrants had just slaughtered three young girls at a dance studio in Southport, where they were singing along to Taylor Swift and making friendship bracelets for each other. This was obviously a very big story. We’ve talked about it several times before. 

Once again, here’s what the killer looked like:

It’s nightmare fuel, as you can see. This photo alone is grounds for the immediate deportation of this individual, along with everyone remotely related to him. But even before this attack, there were about a million other grounds for deportation. When you look into this story, it was a very preventable act of terrorism.

For one thing, the killer had repeatedly been referred to counter-terrorism investigators in the years prior to his murder spree at the dance studio. He was threatening people left and right. And just a week before the Southport massacre, the killer tried to hail a cab that would take him to his former school, where he had been expelled for carrying a knife and threatening students. His father desperately ran out into the street and told the cabbie not to drive him anywhere, probably because he knew his son was planning to kill everyone at the school. But his father didn’t alert the police after this incident. (Nor did he inform the police about his son’s Al Qaeda training manual, or the ricin that was in his possession, although it’s not clear if he knew about those.) And of course, this killer — and his parents — should not have been in the UK in the first place. They should’ve been back home in Rwanda, contributing their wisdom and rich culture to their home country. But instead they were spreading cultural enrichment to the UK.

So with all this in mind, it wasn’t exactly surprising that, in the wake of this murderous rampage at the dance studio, someone like Lucy Connolly would call for mass deportations on social media. It also wasn’t surprising that she’d talk about burning various migrant encampments inside the UK, whether or not so-called “asylum seekers” and government officials were inside them. That’s because, when people witness the brutal execution of small children inside their own country at the hands of foreign nationals who have no business being anywhere near their country, they’re liable to become upset. They’re liable to wonder why they even have a government at all, if it can’t keep them safe from Rwandan migrants — particularly Rwandan migrants who have been unstable and dangerous for many years. To be clear, Lucy Connolly was not threatening to commit any act of violence. She wasn’t saying she was about to go out and torch a “migrant hotel” or kill any politician. Nor did she tell anyone else to do so. There was no imminent threat of violence.  She was expressing frustration, as she would have every right to do in a free country.

But the UK is not a free country, which is why Lucy Connolly — for the crime of sending that one tweet — was just sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison. You may have heard about this case, especially now that the Trump administration says it’s “monitoring” the situation. It’s also been picked up by a few different outlets. But to really understand how pathological and disturbing this prosecution is, you need to see some of the details behind Lucy Connolly’s appeal, which was just rejected by a panel of three judges. She went to court to reduce her sentence, and they denied her appeal. And if you look at what happened during her appeal, you’ll realize that the British government is engaging in a very sadistic effort to crush the right of freedom of speech. Their goal is to communicate, very explicitly, that citizens are not allowed to complain about the natural effects of their government’s actions. And if citizens step out of line, they’ll be imprisoned for a substantial period of time.

For starters, in its ruling, the appellate court confirmed that Lucy Connolly deleted her allegedly offending tweet within three and a half hours. Yes, the tweet was posted to her account for a grand total of *three and a half hours*. That’s it.  And in those three and a half hours, unsurprisingly, no one torched a hotel because of her tweet. No one killed a politician, or attempted to kill a politician. But in the sentencing hearing, the court found that Lucy Connolly still deserved to spend several years in jail. Why is that?

If you look into the appellate court’s decision, here’s what you’ll find. They say that, on July 25th, several days before the Southport stabbings, she wrote, “Somalian, I guess. Loads of them,” followed by a “vomiting emoji.” She wrote that post in response to a story about an apparent foreign national who was caught masturbating in public. She also mocked people who were demonstrating in favor of more illegal migration, saying, “Oh good. I take it they will all be in line to sign up to house an illegal boat invader then. Oh sorry, refugee. Maybe sign a waiver to say they don’t mind if it’s one of their family that gets attacked, butchered, raped etc, by unvetted criminals. Not all heroes wear capes.”

In other words, in court, Lucy Connolly was being held responsible, in part, for expressing completely reasonable sentiments about illegal migration. There’s nothing remotely controversial about either of these other two tweets. I’ve said stuff like that on my podcast many times, unapologetically so. But in the UK, her posts were considered an additional justification for sentencing her to several years in prison. See how that works? They find one tweet that they don’t like. And then they work their way backwards.

None of the mitigating factors mattered at all. They didn’t care that Lucy Connolly had never been convicted of any crime before. They didn’t care that her daughter is 12 years old and her husband suffers from bone-marrow failure. And they didn’t care that one of Lucy Connolly’s children died at 19 months, apparently due to incompetence by medical personnel — a fact that would obviously make her more upset at the sight of seeing other children dying in Southport because of needless government incompetence.

Here’s what the judge wrote about that: “You have had tragedy in your own life with the loss of your very young child some years ago. I have read the psychiatric report from some 12 years ago as to the psychiatric difficulties you then suffered. I accept that you still very keenly feel that loss. There is no recent psychiatric evidence, and, whilst you may well have understood the grief of those who suffered their own tragic losses in Southport, you did not send a message of understanding and comfort, but rather an incitement to hatred.”

In other words, in the UK, you’re not supposed to identify the reason that children are dying. You’re not allowed to be frustrated by the causes of these deaths. Instead, you’re just supposed to express “understanding and comfort” when it happens. And if you don’t follow that rule, then you go to prison for a very long time. And notice the phrase this worthless, scumbag judge used. He said “incitement to hatred.” They aren’t even claiming that Lucy incited violence. They’re claiming that she incited people to feel unpleasant emotions. And that’s why she must leave her only remaining living child and go spend nearly three years in prison. And that is why Lucy Connolly, in every sense, is a political prisoner.

In case you needed more evidence of that, consider what happened to 21-year-old Ibrahim Mir.

In the wake of the Southport stabbings, there was a lot of civil unrest. Many British citizens were protesting against all of the migration into their country. But Ibrahim Mir wasn’t one of them. Instead, he was one of the “counter-protesters.” But there’s evidence he did a lot more than mere “protesting.” He was caught on camera wearing a balaclava and throwing a brick before running away with a bunch of his friends from the local mosque. He pleaded guilty to “violent disorder.” 

Guess what Ibrahim Mir’s sentence was? Well, he didn’t really receive one. Technically he was hit with 20-months in prison, but the sentence was suspended, meaning he won’t serve a day of it. Here’s what the judge, someone named Graeme Smith, told Ibrahim:

You were holding a brick or a rock, you discarded that – the prosecution says you threw it, you say you were getting rid of it – in my judgement you did throw it further than needed, but not in the direction of anyone, and nobody was hurt. You were wearing a balaclava – a futile attempt to disguise yourself, if that’s what you were trying to do. I am told of your good character, and you are relatively young. You have a caring role for your brother in illness. You are a hard worker. … I hope your progress will be positive and I haven’t made the wrong decision.

None of this sympathy was afforded to Lucy Connolly — even though she never went out in public wearing a disguise, or threw a brick, or anything like that, and even though she’s taking care of her sick husband and her daughter. Meanwhile, Ibrahim has a sick brother, so he gets to go free. It’s not even a comparable situation at all. One person wrote some words on a computer, and the other person went out in public dressed like a terrorist, and committed acts that are obviously threatening and dangerous. But in the UK, Lucy Connolly goes to prison for two years, while this guy doesn’t go to prison at all. He suffered no consequences whatsoever.

As I alluded to earlier, neither did the 33-year-old Labor Party official who exposed himself to a 13-year-old girl and then stalked her through the streets. And then, after the girl escaped, he spotted a woman walking her dog and decided to expose himself once more. The party official, named Sam Gould, ultimately paid a fine of a few hundred dollars. He had to take a course on how to talk to women. And that’s it. He received no jail time for obsessively exposing himself to random underaged girls. Huw Edwards, the former BBC presenter, got a similar deal. He received dozens of images depicting the sexual abuse of children. He admitted to all of it. Once again, no jail time.

It was the same story for the crew of Muslims that rode in a convoy throughout central London a couple of years ago, calling for sexual assaults against Jewish people. Again, there were no charges, because the prosecution claimed it’d be impossible to get a conviction.

Along the same lines, as of now, no charges are pending against a 39-year-old NHS employee and part-time cleric Omar Abdallah Mansuur, pictured here:

Supposedly Omar issued a fatwa against a non-believer who insulted Mohammed. The NHS employee reportedly showed a photo of his victim, then said:

When he repents, he will be put to death in the manner Muslims are killed. … If he refuses to repent he will be caught, killed and then thrown away in a hole like a dog.

As you can see, he’s actually wearing his NHS shirt while he’s saying stuff like this. According to The Daily Mail, he shot this footage inside St Thomas’ Hospital – which is “directly across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament.” So it’s just right out in the open. Omar has apparently been suspended from his job, but he hasn’t been hauled to jail. He’s not facing any prison time. His defense is that he wasn’t actually threatening anyone; he was just reciting the Islamic punishment for blasphemy. But that’s small comfort for his victim, who’s now fled the country after police say it’s too dangerous for him to return.

We could spend the next month going through more examples like this. In fact, there are even worse examples that The Telegraph has collected, from pedophiles to rapists, who have received less than two-and-a-half years in prison in the UK. And in the meantime, all across Britain, free speech is being punished. It’s not just the Lucy Connolly case. It’s happening constantly — far more than most people think.

This is from The Economist: 

Speech is being restricted, particularly online, in alarming ways and at an increasingly alarming rate. The number of arrests—more than a thousand a month for online posts—shows this is no longer about a few rogue cases. The root cause can be found in the country’s speech laws, which are a mess and ill-suited to the digital age: Brits are prosecuted for the sorts of conversations they would have had in the pub. And things are set to get worse.

Yes, there are “more than a thousand arrests” per month for online posts in the UK. The article states that people have been hauled to jail for saying that their country is “under attack” from foreign nationals. There’s another case where parents were booked for writing “disparaging WhatsApp messages about their daughter’s primary school.” And then there’s a case where a man “posted a picture of himself on the way to a Halloween party dressed as an Islamist who carried out a terrorist attack.” And on and on.

This is the kind of full-fledged attack on basic human rights that, if it were happening in some Arab country, establishment Republicans would be calling on us to invade, kill the country’s entire leadership structure, and instill a “democratic” regime in its place. But it’s happening in Britain right now, an alleged “liberal democracy” and “ally of the United States.” And therefore, the reaction has been muted. We’re effectively tolerating the eradication of free speech and equal protection in the UK, as well as countries like Australia and Canada. These are all countries with very large populations that already detest the United States. And now they’re sliding headlong into left wing authoritarianism.

That means it’s time to talk about a future — in the very near term — in which America has no allies at all. Pretending that we have “allies” — when they’re imprisoning women for tweets that are posted online for three hours — is a lot worse than admitting the truth. We have very little in common with these countries anymore. And the significance of this development can’t be overstated. In the context of the UK, we’re talking about the birthplace of the “common law,” which is the foundation of our legal system in the United States. That’s not a small thing. It’s a reminder that we’re not immune from becoming just like them. It can happen pretty quickly, actually. We’re not immune from adopting a legal system that imprisons political dissidents while giving child-abusers a slap on the wrist. Unless we want to suffer that fate, and devolve into a failed state that jails middle-aged women for tweets that the government doesn’t like, we need to denounce our alleged “allies” as the authoritarian dictatorships that they are. We need to realize that they aren’t our allies at all — not in any meaningful sense. And then we need to accept the fact that, if we want to be a country that actually values and protects free speech, we will be on our own. And personally, I’m fine with that.