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JD Vance attends an Oval Office meeting (April, 2025). JD Vance intends to demand that the British government roll back laws against hateful comments to secure a trade deal.
An anonymous White House advisor said JD Vance is “obsessed by the fall of Western civilization."
The United States is reportedly telling the United Kingdom to repeal its hate speech protections for LGBTQ+ people and other minorities in order to secure a trade deal.
JD Vance intends to demand that the British government roll back laws against hateful comments, including abuse targeting LGBTQ+ groups, as a condition in any deal between the nations, an anonymous senior Washington figure who has advised the Trump Administration told The Independent.
The source said that the vice president is “obsessed by the fall of Western civilization,” and believes that free speech is supposedly being suppressed in the U.K. through such laws.
“The vice-president expressing optimism [on a trade deal] is a way of putting further pressure on the UK over free speech. If a deal does not go through, it makes Labour look bad," the source said. "No free speech, no deal. It is as simple as that."
The source also cited Vance's recent speech at an event in Munich, Germany for the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025. Vance said in his remarks that liberalism and immigration are the “most surefire way to destroy democracy."
“The threat that I worry most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values," Vance said, adding, “If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk."
The U.K.'s Public Order Act 1986 prohibits "threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour" that expresses "racial hatred" or hatred "against persons on religious grounds or grounds of sexual orientation." The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 further prohibited inciting hatred against protected groups.
A source from Downing Street, the office of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, told the outlet that free speech “is not a feature of the talks."
