Top American politicians, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, are emphasizing the prime American right of free speech in rebuking European censorship.
Speaker Johnson (R-LA) became the first sitting speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives to address the U.K. Parliament on Tuesday to commemorate the 250th year of America’s founding. Even as he delivered remarks to commemorate America’s independence from Great Britain, Johnson reminded Parliament that reverence for free speech was a British value before it was an American one. Echoing this defense of shared principles, a top State Department official likewise took to X this week to defend the First Amendment amid European censorship crackdowns.
During his speech, Johnson pointed out that the U.K. is the “cradle of free speech” and the British people are the “heirs” of politician Edmund Burke, political philosopher John Locke and economist Adam Smith.
Critiquing the U.K. Government’s crackdown on free speech, which has resulted in more than 9,000 arrests in 2024 alone, Johnson provided the British Parliament with an alternative to their present authoritarian censorship practices:
“History teaches us we can never go down the road of censoring and silencing unpopular opinions because liberty is kept alive in the free marketplace of ideas. History further teaches us that the best solution to the problem of free speech is always more speech. And those being unjustly persecuted for exercising those freedoms— such as Jimmy Lai, the British National being held in Hong Kong—, must be defended. And the U.S. stands with the UK as you work to free him.”
Like Johnson, Under Secretary of State Sarah B. Rogers expressed concerns about the tenuous state of free speech in Europe. She addressed both antisemitic propaganda and European censorship policies through the lens of America’s Constitution and history. Even while strongly condemning ongoing antisemitism, she praised the First Amendment for being so robust as to protect abhorrent speech, as contrasted to censorship laws in Germany.
“The same First Amendment famously permits even Nazis to speak in America, unlike in Germany,” she wrote in a Jan. 17 X post. “Our administration has publicly, forcefully committed to support free speech and to oppose antisemitism. Those goals aren’t at odds.” She explained, “It isn’t hard, actually, to oppose censorship laws and also oppose Nazis. America approaches its quarter-century birthday with a proud history of opposing both.”
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