In February 2025, U.S. Vice President, JD Vance stood before the Munich Security Conference and delivered a stark warning. Europe’s greatest threat was not external aggression, but internal decay — specifically, the erosion of free speech.
At the time, his words were met with scorn from European elites, dismissed as populist provocation — even “misinformation”. Yet, just months later, the cultural tide is turning. The May 2025 edition of the Economist is entirely devoted to exposing Europe’s censorship crisis, with the cover piece subtitled “J.D. Vance was right”. Key members of the UK’s previous Conservative government, responsible for implementing various censorship laws in Britain, have now found a voice to call for free speech. In a few short months, the zeitgeist has shifted: we now see that Vance’s critique was not only timely, but prescient.
Vance highlighted the case of Adam Smith-Connor, a British army veteran convicted for the “crime” of silently praying near an abortion facility in Bournemouth. Smith-Connor stood alone, for 3 minutes, across a road from the facility in a green public space — prayerfully remembering a child he had lost through abortion. He obstructed no one, spoke to no one, yet was prosecuted under a “buffer zone” law designed to prevent harassment, abuse, and “expressions of approval or disapproval” of abortion within the large public area. He was sentenced to a conditional discharge and ordered to pay £9,000 in prosecution costs.
This case is not isolated. Livia Tossici-Bolt, also from Bournemouth, was convicted for offering consensual conversations near an abortion facility. Her “crime”? Holding a sign reading “here to talk, if you want” in the area. Inviting consensual conversation. She was ordered to pay £20,000 in prosecution costs.
Similar cases have arisen in Birmingham and in Scotland, where citizens have been prosecuted just for holding a certain point of view on abortion near a clinic or hospital, and either praying, or simply being willing to talk if someone wants to engage with them.
Vance’s speech, derided by European elites at the time, resonates with a public that is increasingly frustrated with their taxes going towards silencing themselves.
Hellbound and Down 