In the Times last weekend, Home Secretary Suella Braverman put forward a blistering defence of free speech and religious freedom:

We do not have blasphemy laws in Great Britain, and must not be complicit in the attempts to impose them on this country. There is no right not to be offended. There is no legal obligation to be reverent towards any religion.

Religious liberty underpins the essential freedom of people of all faiths and none to live according to their convictions. 

Those who live in parts of the world where such freedoms frequently are violated appreciate this more than most. In Nigeria, for example, a potentially landmark case is to be heard at the Supreme Court regarding a Sufi Muslim musician Yahaya Sharif-Aminu. His “crime”? Sharing allegedly “blasphemous” song-lyrics to a private group on Whatsapp. They referred to a nineteenth-century Imam revered in his particular tradition of Islam. For this, he has languished in jail for three years and was sentenced to death under Northern Nigeria’s draconian blasphemy law.

Whilst we may not have the death penalty in the UK, there is now a clear and consistent threat to free speech and religion, such as attempts to undermine the quality of life of those who dare to hold opinions different from the mainstream. Braverman rightly points out concerning examples of self-righteous “cancel culture”. An autistic school child who accidentally scuffed a Qu’ran was suspended and placed on de facto community trial at a Mosque recently, for example, while a street preacher was arrested for “misgendering” a passer-by.

Such examples should cause deep concern about the state of free expression in our country. Nobody should be ousted from public life for either expressing a religious belief, or rejecting one. But it can no longer be argued that the pressures on freedom of religion and expression are purely socio-cultural.    

On Tuesday, MPs voted in a law that would criminalise prayer on certain public streets. As part of the Public Order Bill, praying to God — even silently, in one’s own mind — on certain public streets in the UK could now be a criminal offence. The bill will enact a sizeable perimeter of 150m around all abortion facilities in the UK, prohibiting “influence” of any kind, including, as evidenced by recent legal challenges, prayer.  

It might sound far-fetched. But where these censorious zones have been implemented already by local councils, otherwise law-abiding citizens have faced fines or even criminal charges for the silent thoughts inside their heads. Millions saw the viral video of the arrest of charitable volunteer Isabel Vaughan-Spruce in December, when she admitted to police that she “might be praying” inside her head. Though her name was fully cleared of criminal charges at Birmingham Magistrate’s Court, police arrested her a second time this week for the exact same alleged thought-crime — praying, within her mind. “You’ve said you’re engaging in prayer, which is the offence,” the officer glibly scolded.

The new law purports to be about the safety of women, but it will go much further than banning harassment and intimidation, which are already illegal, and instead encroach on the most basic right to free expression — allowing for the prosecution of thoughts and consensual conversations. Suella rightly wrote that “nobody can demand respect for their belief system, even if it is a religion”. But does this also apply to the politically contested issue of abortion? The fact that even consensual conversations between willing women in public spaces was rejected by MPs in a free vote on Tuesday would suggest that we are inching closer to the idea that there are some issues that must not be discussed or, some might say, blasphemed, without state punishment.

Not only is prayer banned in parts of England, but north of the border, free expression of religion is legally silenced to an even greater extent. In 2021, Scotland formally repealed its archaic and defunct blasphemy law; but in the same deft move, invoked a new blasphemy ban to protect the dominant state “religion” of 2023.  Speech that challenges current social orthodoxies might be subjectively interpreted as “stirring up hatred” resulting in an up-to-7-year prison sentence. There’s little to stop this from impacting the expression of Christian belief that marriage is between a man and a woman, or that sex is immutable.  

Laws that prohibit prayer in the UK are only set to increase in number. The proposed “conversion therapy” ban – both in Holyrood and Westminster – could result in the criminalisation of pastors or even parents who pray alongside children struggling with sexuality or gender dysphoria.   

In short, legal erosions against free religious expression in our country are well underway. This government was elected on a 2019 manifesto to “champion freedom of expression and tolerance, both in the UK and overseas.” Yet it has overseen the destruction of fundamental freedoms in hard law. It’s hardly a shining international example from the free and democratic West. If the government wish for a legacy of protecting free speech in this country, it’s time to change course.