US should recognise UK is a free country, Badenoch says, amid free speech row

The US State Department should recognise that the UK is “a free country with liberal values”, Kemi Badenoch has said, after American officials expressed concern over the prosecution of a British anti-abortion campaigner.

The Tory leader said that laws surrounding so-called “buffer zones” outside abortion clinics had been passed democratically and “we need to respect what Parliament votes for”.

It comes after the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour (DRL), a bureau within the State Department, which is responsible for foreign policy, said it was “monitoring” the case of Livia Tossici-Bolt.

The anti-abortion campaigner, 64, was on trial at Poole Magistrates’ Court last month, accused of breaching the Public Spaces Protection Order on two days in March 2023. The verdict will be delivered on Friday April 4.

The case involved Tossici-Bolt holding a sign saying “Here to talk, if you want” outside a Bournemouth abortion clinic.

In a rare intervention over the weekend, the State Department said in a post on X: “US-UK relations share a mutual respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

“However, as Vice President Vance has said, we are concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom.

“While recently in the UK, DRL senior adviser Sam Samson met with Livia Tossici-Bolt, who faces criminal charges for offering conversation within a legally prohibited ‘buffer zone’ at an abortion clinic.

“We are monitoring her case. It is important that the UK respect and protect freedom of expression.”

Asked about Washington’s concerns at a press conference on Tuesday, Mrs Badenoch said “some of the things that the US State Department is commenting on is actually more commentary rather than reality”.

“One of the things I do not want to see is us bringing the abortion laws that the US has to our country,” she told journalists.

“We never had this before. We don’t need that. The State Department should recognise that this is a free country that has liberal values. People in our country have freedom.

“I don’t know how exactly the interpretation for what happened to that lady did occur.

“I remember when we had votes in Parliament, I thought that we were too onerous in what we were doing around buffer zones, but at the end of the day, that’s what Parliament voted for and we need to respect what Parliament votes for.”

Mrs Badenoch said she believed that free speech must be protected and there must be measures in place to ensure no “overreach”.

Downing Street has downplayed suggestions of free speech issues featuring in negotiations with the US as the UK seeks to secure a transatlantic economic deal to mitigate the impact of President Donald Trump’s global tariffs.

Asked whether such laws would be on the table, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “I’m not aware of that being… an aspect as the Business Secretary said this morning.”

He added: “The US is our closest ally, we’ll obviously talk to them about all areas of our relationship,  as we do on security and defence, as we do on all issues that relate to US, UK, special relationship.

“But when it comes to the trade talks, I think the Business Secretary said this morning, he’s not aware of that featuring.”