Intervention over mother jailed for inciting racial hatred follows Vice President JD Vance’s warning that freedom of expression in the UK is ‘in retreat.’
The U.S. State Department has said it is monitoring the case of Lucy Connolly, the British mother jailed for 31 months for a social media post made following the Southport murders, amid escalating free speech concerns from civil liberties groups in the UK.
A spokesperson for the State Department told The Epoch Times in a statement: “We can confirm that we are monitoring this matter. The United States supports freedom of expression at home and abroad, and remains concerned about infringements on freedom of expression.”
In April, the UK government denied that free speech concerns raised by the State Department and Vice President JD Vance in relation to the criminal prosecutions of pro-life supporters had played a “material role” in the trade tariff negotiations between the two nations.
Connolly, from Northampton, was jailed after pleading guilty to inciting racial hatred following comments she made about illegal immigrants on social media platform X hours after teenage killer Axel Rudakubana murdered three young girls in Southport on July 29 last year.
The offending post called for “mass deportation now,” adding: “Set fire to all the [expletive] hotels full of the [expletive] for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government and politicians with them.”
Summer Riots and Disinformation
Connolly’s offending post appeared in response to disinformation spread by a number of high-profile accounts on X, wrongly claiming that the Southport attacker was a recently-arrived illegal immigrant, while speculation swirled as to his identity amid a growing public backlash against government policies around immigration.
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The former childminder was jailed last October following a trial at Birmingham Crown Court and told she must serve 40 percent of the sentence before she can be released on licence.
The 42-year-old, who is married to former Conservative Councillor Ray Connolly, lost her appeal against the sentence last week, which her legal team argued was unduly harsh because she had deleted the offending post within four hours of writing it while she was in an emotionally distressed state.
Former Conservative councillor Raymond Connolly (centre) with supporters include broadcaster Dan Wootton outside the Court of Appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London on May 15, 2025. Yui Mok/PA
‘10,000 Arrests a Year’
Her husband said last Tuesday, following the failure of the appeal: “Lucy posted one nasty tweet when she was upset and angry about three little girls who were brutally murdered in Southport.
“She realised the tweet was wrong and deleted it within four hours. That did not mean Lucy was a ‘far right thug’ as as Prime Minister [Sir] Keir Starmer claimed.”
Johnson said that there are now in the region of “10,000 arrests a year” because of things people have posted online, which is “more than in Russia,” which he claimed was “a propaganda gift” for the country’s President Vladimir Putin.
“We denounced the Gestapo, resisted them and finally destroyed them. We despised the brutality and intimidation of the KGB, the Stasi, the Securitate. We hated the culture of spies and informers, where people monitored what you said and then sneakily reported it to the authorities,” Johnson added.
Opposition ministers have raised their concerns about the Connolly case, including shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick, who said on Talk Radio, “How on earth can you spend longer in prison for a tweet than [for] violent crime?”
U.S. Vice-President JD Vance addresses the audience during the Munich Security Conference at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich, Germany, on Feb. 14, 2025. Matthias Schrader/AP Photo
Labour MP Breaks Ranks
Last week Mary Glindon became the first Labour MP to break party ranks, joining Conservative MPs in signing a motion of support for Connolly’s release from Rupert Lowe, the independent former Reform UK MP who used Prime Minister’s Questions to raise the case.
Weighing into the free speech row earlier this year, Vance told the Munich Security Conference in February of his concerns over the case of Adam Smith Connor, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran convicted for silent prayer in an abortion clinic buffer zone.
Referring to “the backslide away from conscience rights,” which has “placed the basic liberties of religious Britons in particular in the crosshairs,” the vice president said that “in Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.”
Vance pledged that under the “new sheriff in town,” President Donald Trump, “We may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer them in the public square.”
Son’s Death
Analysis of her archived posts shows that, using the X handle @LJCJ83 and changing the spelling of her name to “Lucie,” Connolly was extremely active on the social media platform, regularly posting in the region of 100 times a day to more than 9,000 followers in the nine-month period prior to her arrest.
Although she deleted her account following her arrest, some 10,000 of her archived posts reveal that she frequently commented on the subject of immigration, peppering her posts with profanities. On the day of the Southport attacks, she posted at least 118 times, including replies.
She claimed that the balance of her mind had been affected by post-traumatic stress disorder when she heard about the murders, which took place at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.
Her defence argued that the death of Connolly’s 19-month-old son in 2011 had affected her reaction to the brutal murders of Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, last July.
She told the court that because medical negligence had led to the death of her son, she had little trust in authority or in official versions of events.
Dismissing her appeal, Lord Justice Holroyde said the three High Court judges deciding her fate found it “incredible” that Connolly had pleaded guilty without realising the offence of inciting hatred attracted a starting point of three years in custody, as she claimed.
Starmer defended the sentencing of Connolly when challenged by Lowe in Parliament, saying: “I am strongly in favour of free speech, we’ve had free speech in this country for a very long time and we protect it fiercely.
“But I am equally against incitement to violence against other people. I will always support the action taken by our police and courts to keep our streets and people safe.”
