Senior Trump official’s claims about UK free speech arrests rejected by No 10

Claims by a senior official in the Trump administration that British police were making thousands of “freedom of speech” arrests have been rejected by the UK government. Sarah B Rogers, who has become the public face of the US state department’s hostility to European liberal democracies, was accused by MPs of echoing far-right memes and conspiracy theories during a speech at an international rightwing conference in London. She also referenced the death of Henry Nowak and a recent incident in which a child was thrown into a zoo’s crocodile pit. Rogers, who has publicly attacked policies on hate speech and immigration by US allies and promoted far-right parties abroad, centred her speech on the notion of “Da Yookay” – a viral meme heavily associated with the online far right. Speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), which was also addressed this week by Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch, Rogers listed what she said were examples of the Britain that people saw online. “In ‘Da Yookay’, you can be remanded without bail for an inflammatory tweet, while a psychopath who seizes a three-year-old and feeds him to crocodiles walks free . “In ‘Da Yookay’ the moral sense of jurors won’t save you, because jury trials for speech crimes are abolished. In ‘Da Yookay’, a girl can escape from a rape gang, flag down a police constable and discover the cop is in league with the rapists. “In ‘Da Yookay’ you get a free car for pretending to be disabled. …