The removal of the right to a jury trial will see more people jailed for breaching the UK’s “absurd censorship laws”, a leading figure in Donald Trump’s administration has said.
Sarah Rogers, the Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, also spoke out about Government plans to develop an Islamophobia definition, saying free speech groups had “good reason” to be concerned.
Ms Rogers also took aim at the Online Safety Act, saying that it had been “enacted on this flimsy and disingenuous pretext of child safety that are really about censoring adults”.
The Government has been under fire this week for proposing to axe the centuries-old right to a trial by jury to clear a courts backlog.
On a visit to London on Wednesday, Ms Rogers told GB News’ Political Editor Christopher Hope: “The right to jury trials and other foundational freedoms, we share that with Britain.”
She added: “One reason for the outcry at that jury trial removal is that you won’t have access to jury nullification of your absurd censorship laws.
“This means a jury seeing how the law applies, seeing that the defendant is guilty, and voting to acquit him anyways, because the law is senseless.
“When you have to rely on that safety valve, it means the law is misguided.”
Ms Rogers said Mr Lammy’s proposal could see many more Britons jailed
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GB NEWS / PA
Ms Rogers also said that the Trump administration was “not comfortable” with plans by the Government to develop a definition of Islamophobia.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, told MPs on Wednesday that any definition would not be a backdoor introduction of a blasphemy law in the UK.
Ms Rogers referred to the case of Hamit Coskun who was prosecuted for burning a Koran outside the Turkish consulate in London.
Mr Coskun was cleared by a judge in October, who said freedom of expression was a “precious right”.
David Lammy announced plans to scrap some juries
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PAMs Rogers said: “I’m not comfortable with basically anything the UK Government does on ‘Islamophobia’ right now, given the recent decision of the Crown Prosecution Service to appeal the acquittal of the Koran burner, who was convicted in a Kafkaesque manner of inciting violence against himself.
“The Free Speech groups have, with good reason, raised concerns about this Islamophobia definition.
“Now, as to the exact legal effect and the exact scope of any policy concern depends upon how that plugs into existing statutes, how it’s enforced, but recent events certainly do not give me confidence.”
On the Online Safety Act, Ms Rogers said the Government’s defence of the law – a supposed way of preventing children from seeing adult content on the internet – was “flimsy”.
She said: “What we don’t want is censorship statutes enacted on this flimsy and disingenuous pretext of child safety that is really about censoring adults.
“I would also add that when you censor adult speech on matters of public concern, including the mass migration, you end up putting children at risk because the society can’t govern itself by deliberating openly and truthfully about topics such as rape gangs, which endanger children, and speech on that subject has been censored pursuant to the Online Safety Act.
“The US Congress was planning to stop it from having any jurisdiction over American companies, she said.
“I can’t find anyone who’s really willing or able to defend what this law actually does, which imposes on the whole world, not just Britain, and imposes on adults, not just kids, the same absurd and misguided hate speech laws that land comedians in prison, and that’s because the provisions of the Online Safety Act are quite broad”, she told GB News.
“They apply to American companies, not just British companies, and they apply to speech, totally off British soil that has nothing to do with British people so the law overreaches. In that sense, the law vastly overreaches.”