Nigel Farage’s hypocrisy on free speech was on show in Washington - David Behrens

I have Linehan’s autobiography in front of me. He tells of co-creating the comedy Father Ted partly as a way of confronting the hypocritical priests under whose holy writ he was raised. To ridicule people like that was to disempower them.

Last week, Linehan was himself disempowered; arrested by five armed police, taken away and grilled about three satirical comments he’d made on Twitter. He’s a comedy writer; satire is his job.

Linehan is also a vocal critic of transgender rights, which is why the police took an interest. Some self-appointed arbiter had presumably complained to them. You can only hope they respond as quickly if you tell them your car has been stolen or your home burgled.

The whole thing seemed like an overreaction. But what happened next exposed a degree of hypocrisy not even His late Holiness could have envisioned.

Within 48 hours of Linehan telling his story, Nigel Farage was in front of the House Judiciary Committee in Washington citing it as an example of the “authoritarian censorship regime” he considered Britain had become.

Farage also invoked the case of Lucy Connolly, the childminder who went to prison for encouraging the burning down of asylum hotels at the height of last year’s riots. There was no satirical intent there.

Mrs Connolly is seen by some as a modern-day Joan of Arc, martyred for railing against the state – but that is a misreading of history. Joan was a martyr because she was burned at the stake, not because she wanted to set fire to others.

In both Connolly and Linehan’s cases we are being asked to believe that the state suppressed their rights to free speech and that Farage has stepped forward as a righteous rampart against such subjugation.

He went so far as to tell his American audience that the UK could only aspire to the liberal enlightenment that shone like a beacon from the Statue of Liberty and lit up the blackness around (I’m summarising; his speech was all over the place).

It’s a selective argument that doesn’t stand even the most basic scrutiny. The International Bar Association says America is in the midst of the gravest assault on free speech since the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s, with the Trump administration threatening protestors, banning news outlets from covering White House events and using executive orders to sanction lawyers who oppose it.

Young people who wish to study in the US are made to submit their social media accounts for ‘enhanced vetting’ as a condition of their visas. Those who have expressed views that are deemed ‘unfriendly’ are denied entry. That does not sound like the bastion of free expression the First Amendment was supposed to have enshrined.

It does, however, sound like what is happening back home in Nottinghamshire, where the Reform politicians who now lead the council have been removing the very freedoms their leader is supposed to cherish.

They have imposed a news blackout on the local daily paper because it reported dissent within their ranks. Councillors were said to be in fear of suspension if they did not support their leader’s preferred option for local government reorganisation on their patch.

Mick Barton, the leader in question, said he welcomed “open dialogue” but had “a duty to protect the credibility of our governance” and would not engage with media outlets he considered to be misrepresenting his intentions.

In other words, he supports freedom of speech so long as you agree with him. Everyone else is to be silenced.

Barefaced censorship like that is unprecedented in local government and affects not just one newspaper but the rights of everyone to know what their council is doing in their name.

It should shock but not surprise you. Silencing critics and critics alone is what despots always do. It’s a ruse that has defined both Trump administrations and is starting to define Reform. But it doesn’t define Britain, no matter what Nigel Farage says. If it did, he wouldn’t be allowed to say anything, would he?

It’s the devil’s work he’s doing and even an eejit like Father Ted would see that. I’m with his creator on this: ridicule is still the best way of disempowering hypocrisy.