(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) In response to recent anti-immigration protests, the British government began arresting citizens over social-media comments that the government disagreed with, the Business & Politics Review reported.
Working-class British citizens and Muslim immigrants violently clashed in the streets following the murder of three young girls in Southport, England.
Birmingham tonight.
Pubs attacked.
This is a show of power.
Police absolutely nowhere in these clips.
The far right are being blamed, somehow.
They’re the issue, not these guys.
Terrifying times for our nation. pic.twitter.com/5zvRQMbfvy— Darren Grimes (@darrengrimes_) August 5, 2024
The suspect in the grisly stabbing attack, which injured several other children and adults, was the 17-year-old son of Rwandan immigrants.
In response to the uprising, however, British authorities appeared to side largely with the immigrants, threatening draconian consequences against their own citizens over what radical leftist Prime Minister Keir Starmer labeled “far-right” protests.
Starmer, recently elevated into the role after the left-wing Labour Party routed conservatives in a special parliamentary election, threatened to escalate tensions by mobilizing a standing police force—prompting some on social media to criticize his hypocrisy with hashtags including #TwoTierKeir.
🚨 BREAKING: Prime Minister Keir Starmer's full address to the nation about the riots on Britain's streets pic.twitter.com/kluETspjXT
— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) August 4, 2024
However, some political dissidents quickly discovered that even Facebook criticism was not to be tolerated under the new Orwellian police state.
One British citizen captured footage of his apparent arrest after he wrote an anti-immigrant Facebook post.
“I’m arresting you on suspicion of improper use of the electronic communications network,” a female police officer says in the video as she accosts a man in his home.
“So I’m actually being arrested?” he asked, receiving a response in the affirmative as officers put on gloves to perform their search.
“This is in relation to some comments that you made on a Facebook page,” the female police officer added, noting that he was being arrested for offending people.
“You made some comments that are offensive, obscene,” she said before the police began the search of the victim’s person.
The video, which was posted on X, drew a response from billionaire Elon Musk, who questioned whether the footage was of England or the Soviet Union.
Arrested for making comments on Facebook!
Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?
Is this accurate @CommunityNotes? https://t.co/ov7lKEUl2C
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2024
Musk’s criticisms, in turn, triggered Starmer, whose spokesman claimed that there was “no justification” for the remarks and denied allegations of enforcing laws in favor of Muslims while ignoring the law when it would benefit British citizens.
“What we’ve seen in this country is organized illegal thuggery which has no place on our streets or online,” the spokesperson said, according to CNBC.
“We’re talking about a minority of thugs that do not speak for Britain, and in response to it we’ve seen some of the best of our communities coming out to clean up the mess and disruption,” the spokesperson added. “You can tell from that the prime minister doesn’t share those sentiments.”
Other U.K. officials went on to blame Musk, accusing the X owner of being remiss in his censorship duties.
“I do think the social media companies should be doing more,” Courts Minister Heidi Alexander told Sky News Tuesday. “They’ve got a moral responsibility not to be propagating and disseminating misleading and inflammatory content on their platforms.”
As bleak as things appear to be in England, similar patterns have developed in President Joe Biden’s America.
Last year, for instance, Biden’s FBI accosted and killed Craig Robertson, a 75-year-old Utah Trump supporter, conducting an early-morning raid of his home that ended in his death after Robertson joked that he planned to “dust off the M24 sniper rifle” for Biden’s visit to the state.
In another example of two-tiered justice, an actual assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump last month has uncovered rampant incompetence and politicization within the U.S. Secret Service, which had several opportunities to prevent would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks from wounding Trump with a near-fatal shot that grazed his ear.
Rallygoer Corey Comperatore was killed by one of the stray bullets, and two others were critically injured.
The Justice Department has prosecuted more than 1,000 political dissidents for their participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, mostly peaceful uprising at the U.S. Capitol, while it has turned a blind eye toward similar violence and vandalism from pro-Hamas rioters in recent weeks.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
