Lucy Connolly has said she will meet with Donald Trump's team on Saturday to discuss free speech issues following her release from jail for spreading racially inciting remarks.
A 42-year-old woman has been jailed for online posts inciting racial hatred against asylum seekers. The incident followed the Southport killings last year.
The former nanny and wife of a Conservative councillor left Peterborough Prison on Thursday.
In one of her first post-crime interviews, she mentioned an upcoming meeting with US administration officials, but expressed ignorance about the specific topic of discussion.
“They have a keen interest in the rights situation in the UK, they are strong supporters of freedom of expression and their lawyers are keen to talk to me,” she told Dan Wootton on YouTube.
Vice-presidential figure JD Vance has been among those vocal in raising concerns about the state of free speech in the UK.
The latest US State Department study examining civil liberties globally has found “significant restrictions” on self-expression in the UK.
The document states that since the Southport tragedy in 2024, British officials have “repeatedly taken action to restrict freedom of speech.”
Ms Connolly accepted that her social media post last year was wrong, but told Wootton she could not be described as a “radical right-winger”.
“You're just silencing people. It's like, 'Let's label them, let's say they're bad people, and they'll shut up,'” she said.
In her post on Platform X on July 29, 2024, Mrs. Connolly wrote: “Immediate mass deportation, burn down these damn hotels full of bastards, I don't care… if that's racist then I'm racist.”
She was detained on August 6. By that time, the account had been deleted, but when analyzing the confiscated phone, security forces found additional messages with hateful content.
The post received 310,000 views in three and a half hours before it was removed.
Connolly was asked whether she considered herself a “prisoner of conscience under Sir Keir Starmer's administration”.
“Absolutely. I am one of them,” came the reply.
“I think Starmer needs to be consistent in his convictions. As a civil rights specialist, it makes sense for him to understand what human rights are, what freedom of expression is and what the legal framework is,” she told The Telegraph.
She added that she was considering filing a lawsuit against the police over widespread allegations that she told officers she disliked immigrants during questioning.
In a statement to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the prisoner described police methods as “inappropriate”, saying her statements had been “twisted in substance and used against her”.
Connolly dismissed suggestions that racist posts had been identified before and after the Southport post, telling Wootton: “There was no racist content there.”
A CPS press release on 2 September, following the guilty plea, quoted Frank Ferguson, head of the CPS Special Crime and Terrorism Unit, as saying: “During interview, Lucy Connolly outlined a hardline stance on immigration, spoke of an aversion to migrants and a lack of protection for children from them.”
The Crown Prosecution Service declined to comment further on Connolly's case beyond what was given at the time of his conviction.
A revised October statement from the Crown, issued after the sentencing, said Ms Connolly had expressed hostility specifically towards “illegal immigrants”.
Both versions of the document included the note: “Having strong or unconventional beliefs is not a crime, but inciting racial hatred is a crime – and this is what the FGU admitted its guilt to.”
A Northamptonshire Police spokesman said the force was aware of the ex-prisoner's interview.
It was stated: “We plan to contact Lucy Connolly in the coming days regarding the questions she has raised with our county police department.”
Connolly herself announced her intention to publish the transcript of the interview, claiming it would show that the statements made by the police and the CPS were “extremely far from the actual words I said in the interview”.
An attempt to appeal the verdict to the Court of Appeal was rejected in May.
Ms Connolly's release became automatic after she served 40% of her 31-month sentence.
She will spend the rest of her sentence on parole.
She told the Telegraph that she saw pleading guilty as “the quickest way home” before the Christmas holidays with her daughter.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
