RICHARD NORTH

THE evil Starmer has been writing in the Telegraph, confessing that the Left ‘ignored immigration fears for too long’.

His response is to offer a plan for ‘patriotic renewal’ (whatever that is) which he asserts is the only thing that will counter ‘the rise of the populist right’. Towards the conclusion of his piece, he writes: ‘For Labour, we are clear that we must absolutely respond to the reasonable concerns about immigration.’

On the face of it, there might seem nothing untoward about this statement, but the hidden menace is in the use of the word ‘reasonable’. Implied by this qualifier is the premise that Labour will define what is reasonable, and it is only to this limited set of concerns that the party will feel the need to respond.

Alternatively, where the Starmer regime confronts concerns which, in their view, are not ‘reasonable’ they will either ignore them or – with increasing severity – cause those who are rash enough to articulate those non-permitted concerns to be arrested, prosecuted and punished.

This is the world in which we now live where, as the lawyer who helped me on Thursday night dealing with my son Pete’s arrest advised, anyone thinking of blogging, tweeting or otherwise contributing to social media, should keep close to hand the telephone number of the law-firm’s 24/7 emergency call-out service.

It is that prevailing ethos which had Pete arrested by North Yorkshire Police. In their ignorance, the constabulary were seeking to build a case that he had reposted a ‘meme’ on X, which was ‘threatening, abusive or insulting’ with the intention ‘thereby to stir up racial hatred’.

Since the meme refers to Hamas, Palestine and Islam, there is no racial element to it. As Pete pointed out, Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation, Palestine is a Middle East region with ill-defined borders, and Islam is a religion. None of these can be construed as ‘threatening, abusive or insulting’ to any specific race.

As an aside, one can see here why the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims is so keen to have its definition of Islamophobia adopted, which has Islamophobia ‘rooted in racism’ and ‘a type of racism’ that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.

Once they can get Islam officially linked to racism, the whole raft of race-orientated legislation can be leveraged, not least Public Order Act 1986, Section 19, where ‘racial hatred’ can be applied to any criticism of, or insult to, Islam.

Interestingly, although North Yorkshire Police asserted that the meme at the centre of this case had been first published by Tommy Robinson, this is not the case. The original designer was @BlairIsInTheAir who lives in Spain. It was retweeted by Tommy Robinson in May last year, and by journalist David Atherton, both of whom were threatened with arrest.

Given that, in both cases, no further action was taken, one would have thought that the police might have given up by now, instead of trying it on with a meme that is now well over a year old, tweeted by thousands and viewed by millions – with no discernible link to any increase in racial hatred.

However, a thought occurs here – that the police might be using the example of their failure to progress the cases as evidence for the support of a formal definition of Islamophobia, in order to strengthen that case currently under consideration by the government.

That may be too Machiavellian, or beyond the competence of the average plod to consider, and it would not explain why the police in Pete’s case chose to arrest him and drag him off to Harrogate for an interview in the dead of night. That speaks of deliberate harassment and intimidation, when the alternative of a ‘voluntary’ interview would have been perfectly adequate.

If there is some good to have come out of this affair, therefore, it is that this particular predatory behaviour of the police has been given the oxygen of publicity.

In particular, this was picked up by David Shipley in the Spectator, under the heading ‘The disturbing arrest of Pete North’.

With the ‘hate crime snatch squad’ coming to get Pete, Shipley recalls how Pete told him that he was ‘shocked’, believing that ‘normal practice is to turn up and invite someone in for an interview’. This has opened the police procedure to the charge that ‘the process is the punishment’, which is deliberately intended to intimidate.

Shipley notes that Pete’s treatment stands in clear contrast to that of Charlotte Hayes, a left-wing TikToker who posted a video apparently calling for people to ‘kill them all’ in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder. Hayes said her words had been misconstrued and Kent police decided to take no further action.

Another response came from Toby Young, director of the Free Speech Union, who says that ‘people are rightly shocked by episodes like this’, but adds that the reality is that the police are arresting more than 30 people a day for social media posts. We know they’re being over-zealous, Young says, because only about 5 per cent of those arrests result in prosecutions.

There has also been input from Rupert Lowe, now the independent MP for Lowestoft. He declared: ‘Free speech does not exist in Britain – it has been systematically undermined by successive governments, often in the name of safety. Pete North’s ordeal is the latest in a long line of egregious violations of Britain’s free speech tradition by the Labour government, and I suspect things will continue to deteriorate – especially with the introduction of digital ID, which will doubtless make this kind of overreach easier and more frequent.’

Other coverage has included a lengthy piece in the Mail which, many hours after the news had been posted on X and this blog, came up with an ‘exclusive’, headlined: ‘Moment police arrest autistic man in middle of the night for posting ‘f*** Hamas’ on social media’.

This featured the video of his arrest that Pete had posted on X, which has at the time of writing attracted 2.7million viewers, with 14K ‘likes’. This is a ‘reach’ which North Yorkshire Police could hardly have imagined, although Pete did warn them that this could be the case.

The Mail report also deals at length with Pete’s health problems which he himself covers in a lengthy tweet, which makes the action by North Yorkshire Police all the more unconscionable.

It is a matter of public concern, he writes, that the police are completely ignorant in their understanding of autism and related conditions. That ignorance, he warns, ‘will end up killing somebody more vulnerable than me’, adding: ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve seen police completely oblivious in their treatment of autistic people. They barge in, in full fluorescent paramilitary gear, and they’re just itching to drag you away.’

Following the Mail, we had a lengthy report in the Telegraph, which has Pete saying that ‘police are ‘terrorising people like me’, and even The Sun joined the fray. Then, of all things, we had the Jerusalem Post with the headline: ‘English man arrested for ‘f*** Islam post’ claims investigating officer knew nothing of Hamas’.

A notable but not unexpected absence was any mention from the left, with studied silence from the Guardian and the BBC, although Searchlight magazine did manage to tie in the arrest of Steve Laws with that of Pete, running the headline: ‘Two leading fascist activists arrested’.

Pete himself finished off the medley with a post on Substack which completes the fairly intensive coverage of a dark corner of English policing, but for an additional piece in the Telegraph which accuses Labour of having turned our constables into commissars.

Laurie Wastell writes: ‘The Prime Minister cannot distance himself from speech policing; this Government has encouraged these shocking arrests . . . The public are right to draw a link between arrests over speech and “two-tier Keir”.’ He is not wrong.

This article appeared in Turbulent Times on September 27, 2025, and is republished by kind permission.

Via The Conservative Woman

Jailed for a meme

PETE NORTH

On Thursday night, I was arrested and detained in solitary confinement for the crime of posting a meme (pictured above). The meme is a political opinion. Stripped of explicit language it says: “I don’t like Hamas, I do not support the Palestinian cause, and I do not like Islam – and I think people who support these causes should move to a Muslim country (which would be more sympathetic to these causes)”.

Voicing this opinion is not an arrestable offence that I know of. As such, we can deduce that the offending part of the meme is the explicit language. I was arrested for posting naughty words online.

The police interview I was subjected to asked if I knew who Tommy Robinson was and whether I was aware that he was the first person to post the offending meme. I do not recall the exact phrasing of the answer I gave, but I recall saying that they couldn’t possibly know that, and it is not an established fact because that’s not how memes work. It has now been established that the meme was authored by @BlairIsInTheAir in November 2023 in the wake of pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

We can reasonably deduce this meme is and was intended as a very specific message to the pro-Palestine hate-marchers who have converged on synagogues (with menaces), hounded MPs, destroyed public property, attacked RAF bases, chanted genocidal slogans and waved the flags of jihadists. Fuck Hamas is a legitimate sentiment.

“Fuck Palestine” may be contentious as a sentiment, but a legitimate sentiment all the same. As is fuck Islam because it’s my right to say fuck any religion – especially those who attempt to impose their religious order on my country. The hate-marchers do indeed need to fuck off to a Muslim country to protest – if only to see how far they’d get. Some Arab states do not tolerate open support for Jihadist groups and no functioning country should. But mostly, they should indeed fuck off to a Muslim country because they’re not shy about voicing their hatred and contempt for my country.

When there are some 40,000 of them on the terror watchlist – and they parade around london with loudhailers shouting “Fuck the Jews, rape their daughters” (something Hamas actually did), I am of the view that: these people simply should not be here, it is not racist to say so, and I don’t particularly give a fuck if it is. My intention is not to incite racial hatred. It is simply to express my opinion, and you are welcome to disagree with it – being that we are notionally a liberal democracy founded on enlightenment values. As such, I endorse every sentiment in this meme.

North Yorkshire Police, though, were attempting establish a link between myself and Tommy Robinson’s activities – while also fishing for evidence that I had intended to stir up racial hatred (the alleged public order offence).

This is baseless on both counts. Any connection with, or sympathies for, Tommy Robinson is neither here nor there. It was reported in August of this year that Tommy Robinson had been questioned by the police for posting the same meme, and I subsequently posted it in solidarity because I believe nobody should face police questioning for posting a meme.

Several people posted the same meme. David Atherton, an ally of Tommy Robinson, was also questioned over the meme without charge. The meme was viral before I ever posted it. There is no racial element to it. The arrest is bogus, as are the claims of North Yorkshire Police.

I’m afraid I will be banging on about this arrest debacle for a little while because there are a lot of avenues to explore (and for my own therapy, I need to talk about this). It’s become clear to me that the process is the punishment. Whether you’re guilty or innocent you are subjected to the same ordeal.

In my case, I was snatched from my home in the night, bundled into a cage in a snatch wagon, held in solitary confinement for hours, coerced into waiving my right to a solicitor, then told I will have to wait until late December for a decision on whether charges will be pressed.

The initial trauma of being detained is horrifying in itself, but I now have to live with this hanging over my head three months. That’s the psychological weight they press on you.

They could have arranged for me to voluntarily attend a police station to be interviewed under caution, and made a rapid decision on the basis of that, but instead they chose to terrorise me and put me through months of uncertainty.

I’m not one for bandying around terms like “PTSD”, because it diminishes the trauma of people who really suffer with it, but I can certainly understand PTSD a whole lot better. Modern detention cells are far worse than the old Victorian police estate that was in operation into the nineties. They are cold, sterile and inhuman. It is a wholly alien, sterile, fluorescent-lit environment that assaults the senses. You’re held in solitary with no idea when you’ll be released. They don’t keep you informed and minutes feel like hours.

As such, even though I’ve finally had a good night’s sleep, it doesn’t stop my brain replaying events, and I feel the same rush of dread. It’s going to take me a few days to feel normal again. Already it’s affected the way I live. I just had a knock on the door from the postman, and I was shaking with fear. These shitbirds could come back at any time with an equally spurious accusation. I now can’t answer the door without looking through the spyhole and having my phone camera ready. This is going to stay with me for a long time.

It’s also robbed me of an amazing experience. We had tickets for WASP and Armoured Saint last night (I’m a huge John Bush fan), but I wasn’t able to drive with the state I was in. I’d only managed to nap for two hours. More than that, I now have to navigate the legal maze because this is not just a case of evading a charge. I want real justice for myself, and my family, but more than that, this evil practice has to stop. Just this morning I’ve seen a video of an old lady being bundled into a snatch wagon cage for the crime of holding up a placard. Something to do with abortion, as I understand it. One day soon, they’ll end up killing someone. This cannot stand and I will stop them.

If you’re familiar with my work, you’ll know I spend a lot of my time dissecting the deficiencies of the right, and I’m not shy about my criticisms. That usually means I am kept at arm’s length because nobody is ever sure where my guns will point next. That’s the price of being independent.

As such, I fully expected to have zero support over this latest debacle, but everybody, including those I’ve crossed swords with, has come out to bat for me this week, and it’s been an absolutely humbling experience. The explosion of outrage has restored my faith. Moreover, I feel supported like never before, and I’m pretty confident North Yorkshire Police have started a battle they will lose. Not only did the footage go viral, so did the offending meme. It’s the Streisand Effect in its full glory.

Whether my the meme I posted is unlawful or not (it isn’t), that the police are sending out snatch squads in the middle of the night to throw people into solitary confinement, and effectively denied their rights, is a dark turn in British policing. That they will do it on the basis of a single complaint gives the left a powerful tool of suppression. It’s much like the mob reporting tactics they employed to have Twitter accounts suspended, only this takes it to the next level. The left don’t just want you silenced. They want you dead. Jailed is the next best thing.

The intent of these police terror tactics is not just to silence me. Securing a conviction is secondary. The goal is to inflict trauma upon those who dare to contradict the narrative as an example to others, in the hope that everyone else will self-censor. As such, the greatest support you can show is to post the offending meme itself and keep being the magnificent bastards that you are.

My hope is that this will be a wake-up call for the authorities. This has been an international humiliation for North Yorkshire police and any further action would simply be a vindictive attempt at face-saving. I doubt they are that stupid but they do have a knack for reaching new lows. As such, I do not underestimate them. Corporate vindictiveness often has no restraints. What I can say, is that I will now be devoting my entire runtime to putting a stop to this.

On a final note, I would just like to reiterate how grateful I am for all of your kind words of support which has made this nightmare bearable. I’m especially thankful to my other half who has been an absolute rock with unwavering support, and to my dad and sister – who were there for me straight away without question – as they always are. I’m still not quite on an even keel yet, so I’m going to relax over the weekend, but when I get myself correct, I will be on the warpath.

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This article (Jailed for a meme) was created and published by Pete North and is republished here under “Fair Use”

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