JONATHAN TURLEY
British Arrest Man for Posting a Picture Holding a Shotgun in the United States
Free Speech, InternationalDecember 1, 2025
In my book, The Indispensable Right, I discuss how free speech is in a free fall in Great Britain, where officials continue to crack down on an ever-widening array of viewpoints. This week, that ignoble record worsened with the arrest of Jon Richelieu-Booth, who told the Yorkshire Post that he was arrested for posting a picture on the networking site LinkedIn of himself holding a shotgun at a friend’s homestead in Florida.
West Yorkshire Police allegedly warned him about the post and told him to be “careful” about what he says online and “how it makes people feel.”
They later came back and arrested Richelieu-Booth over allegedly possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, and a charge of alleged stalking over another picture of a house on his profile. He attempted to show that the photo was taken in the United States, but the police brushed him off.
While the police eventually dropped the case, it dragged on for months, with multiple visits from officers. However, according to The Telegraph, Mr Richelieu-Booth has been charged with a public order offense over another social media post. The media reported that he was not informed of the contents of that picture.
The West Yorkshire Police spokesman issued a statement: “Police received a complaint of stalking involving serious alarm or distress, relating partly to social media posts, several of which included pictures of a male posing with a variety of firearms which the complainant took to be a threat.”
None of this is in the least surprising. For years, I have been writing about the decline of free speech in the United Kingdom and the steady stream of arrests. A man was convicted of sending a tweet while drunk, referring to dead soldiers. Another was arrested for an anti-police t-shirt. Another was arrested for calling the Irish boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend a “leprechaun.” Yet another was arrested for singing “Kung Fu Fighting.” A teenager was arrested for protesting outside of a Scientology center with a sign calling the religion a “cult.”Last year, Nicholas Brock, 52, was convicted of a thought crime in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
The neo-Nazi was given a four-year sentence for what the court called his “toxic ideology” based on the contents of the home he shared with his mother in Maidenhead, Berkshire. Judge Peter Lodder QC dismissed free speech or free thought concerns with a truly Orwellian statement: “I do not sentence you for your political views, but the extremity of those views informs the assessment of dangerousness.”
Lodder lambasted Brock for holding Nazi and other hateful values:
“it is clear that you are a right-wing extremist, your enthusiasm for this repulsive and toxic ideology is demonstrated by the graphic and racist iconography which you have studied and appeared to share with others…”
After the sentencing, Detective Chief Superintendent Kath Barnes, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE), warned others that he was going to prison because he “showed a clear right-wing ideology with the evidence seized from his possessions during the investigation….We are committed to tackling all forms of toxic ideology, which has the potential to threaten public safety and security.”
The Times of London reported in April that police are making around 12,000 arrests per year over online posts.
The years of criminalization and censorship have created a culture of intolerance in Great Britain toward opposing views. Every group is now on a hair-trigger to call the police on those who espouse conflicting values. At the same time, British police departments now expend considerable personnel and resources as speech police.
It is not clear what figures like William Hulton would face today with famous British oil paintings featuring shotguns, including some still hanging in British museums and presumably terrifying citizens.
For free speech groups in Great Britain, the situation could not be more dire, where even silently praying can lead to your arrest. Indeed, expressing support for Western cultural concerns is viewed as evidence of “right-wing ideology.”
Speech in the UK now becomes entirely on “how it makes people feel.”
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