Echoing the Daily Mail’s front page on Wednesday, Nigel Farage lamented the state of free speech in Britain. ‘At what point did we become North Korea?’

He’d been invited to give evidence to the House Judiciary Committee in Washington about the potential impact of British and European laws designed to curb what can be said online.

As Farage flew out to the US, Graham Linehan flew in – to be detained at the airport by five armed police officers over some allegedly hurty words he’d posted on the internet months ago.

Linehan’s arrest followed a complaint by a militant trans activist. The details of his ordeal have been well documented. He was treated like a terrorist suspect and had to be given emergency medical care when his blood pressure went through the roof. Linehan now faces a police investigation for inciting violence.

He also appeared in court yesterday charged with harassment. The case is continuing.

All this has been greeted with incredulity in America, which has a proud tradition of free speech. The arrest of Linehan, an Irish citizen, happened to coincide with the Reform UK leader being asked to address lawmakers in Washington about the implications of the UK’s Online Safety Bill, which will severely restrict content published on US-owned platforms such as Facebook and whatever Twitter calls itself this week.

Farage warned: ‘This could happen to any American man or woman that goes to Heathrow but has said things online that the British government and the British police don’t like. It is a potentially big threat to big tech bosses and many, many others.’

You can imagine the jubilation among the far-Left as Elon Musk is hauled off his private jet by armed coppers when he lands in Britain to launch the latest Tesla model.

Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage testifies before the House Judiciary Committee in Washington

Despite the disingenuous back-pedalling by Surkeir and the hapless Met chief Mark Rowley, there remains a very real possibility of that happening in future.

If they can nick an Irish comedy writer for wrongthink, what’s to stop them feeling the collar of one of Silicon Valley’s tech bosses on arrival?

Concern about the suppression of free speech in the UK has been mounting in America since the re-election of the Anglophile Donald Trump. Back in February, Vice President JD Vance delivered a damning speech about the erosion of civil liberties and contempt for popular democracy on our side of the pond.

As I observed a few weeks ago, Trump and Vance seem to care more about the UK than our hopeless, deluded Labour government.

On everything from Net Zero and defence to immigration and crime they make a great deal more sense than most of the Westminster Bubble’s arrogant, out-of-touch political class.

A recent report from the US State Department accused Britain of backsliding on human rights – especially freedom of speech and the frightening rise in anti-Semitism.

Civil liberties are under assault everywhere, from the police’s obsession with online ‘hate speech’ to the determination to make ill-defined ‘Islamophobia’ a criminal offence, an oppressive blasphemy law by the back door.

Farage rightly warns that the Online Safety Bill will not only curb free speech it could also do serious damage to our trade relations with the US.

Trump and Vance seem to care more about the UK than our hopeless, deluded Labour government

He told the committee: ‘It doesn’t give me any great joy to be sitting in America and describing the really awful authoritarian situation we have sunk into.’

But don’t think for a moment that the state of play in Britain is merely the latest obsession of the New York Times, (the US version of the Guardian), Fox News and the political class.

This has permeated way beyond the Washington Beltway, the US equivalent of the Westminster Bubble. Middle America is paying attention.

It’s no secret that I spend time every year in the States, where my family ties go back to the 1960s. Everywhere I’ve been this summer, I’ve been asked: ‘What the hell is going in your country?’

I don’t mix in political circles. These are questions from regular folk, long-standing friends from all walks of life, and even strangers in bars who clock the accent.

They don’t all buy into the romanticised view peddled by the latest Downton Abbey movie, which had its premiere this week. But they have always considered Britain to be the civilised Mother Country, crucible of liberty.

Yet on the nightly news they see images of social breakdown in Britain – rowdy demos outside migrant hotels and the flotillas of small boats landing daily. While Trump has just about halted all illegal migration on the Southern border, the numbers of illegals arriving in Britain – given four-star board and lodging – hits record levels.

They see pro-Hamas marchers effectively chanting ‘Death to the Jews’ with a police escort, while Surkeir stops military exports to Israel and agrees to recognise a Palestinian state without a single hostage being released.

Graham Linehan at Westminster Magistrates' Court today, where he appears charged with harassment

They hear of grooming gangs allowed to operate with impunity for years, violent crime, shoplifting, stabbings, phone thefts on the streets of London, just like New York in the 1970s. Yet while Trump sends the National Guard to reclaim the streets of DC and other crime-ridden cities, the British bobbies are withdrawing from the streets to concentrate on nicking men like Linehan for online ‘hate crimes’.

Those who pay closer attention are aware that Britain is a high-tax economic basket case, which may soon need a bail-out from the IMF, with half the country living on benefits.

But while Trump continues to Drill, Baby, Drill, and makes the US not just energy self-sufficient but a net exporter, the British Labour government shuts down oil and gas production and pours concrete into fracking sites so they can never be exploited. They ask themselves – and me – why do these guys have an economic death wish?

And, as proud citizens of a sovereign nation, they can’t understand why Surkeir is trying to undo Brexit and drag Britain back into the sclerotic EU.

That’s before they hear of us granting special visas to Turkish drag queens working as escorts on the grounds that they have unique ‘global talent’.

Frankly, I have never known a time when the gap between our two nations has been wider. While Americans are still wedded to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, Britain is sinking ever deeper into a bitter, socialist quagmire.

Julian Fellowes, Downton’s creator, nailed it this week when he said the British hate the rich. Rachel from Complaints is busy drawing up fresh plans to soak anyone who has done well in life through their own efforts, egged on by resentful Labour backbenchers.

In contrast, Americans admire those who have made their own money and aspire to emulate them. I will always remember standing outside a dockside restaurant in Florida with my late father, 40-odd years ago.

As a swanky yacht pulled up, I heard a young man nearby say: ‘Wow, I’m going to have one like that some day.’ In Britain, that same young man would have scowled and said: ‘What’s that rich bastard done to deserve a boat like this?’

It’s often said that we are two countries divided by a common language. But it’s more than that. We’re divided philosophically, too.

Take the Linehan case. Freedom of speech is written into the US Constitution. The notion that a comedy writer could be arrested in America for upsetting someone on Twitter is unthinkable.

But the idea that we have ever had freedom of expression in Britain, certainly in my lifetime, is a fiction.

Yes, it’s got ten times worse as the grievance/victim/cancel culture has become institutionalised and weaponised to suppress those who dissent against fashionable far-Left opinion.

But we have long had some of the world’s most draconian libel laws.

What we can broadcast and print is curtailed by a standing bureaucracy, including Ofcom and IPSO, the newspaper complaints watchdog. There would never have been a Leveson Inquisition into the Press in the US.

Social media pile-ons discourage people from expressing their true opinions, fearful of having their lives and careers ruined.

The Online Safety Bill will exacerbate things still further. The exponential pace of our descent into authoritarianism has been staggering.

Farage ended his evidence in Washington on a upbeat note. He said the UK had ‘lost its way’ but was confident common sense would return – especially if he becomes Prime Minister. Let’s hope so, but I don’t share his optimism.

Whatever the outcome of his court case, Linehan won’t be the last to fall foul of the free-speech police. Those who dare to criticise the far-Left orthodoxy, on everything from trans rights to illegal immigration, will continue to be harassed, demonised, persecuted and, no doubt, prosecuted.

In the wake of the Ginge Rayner stamp duty expose, how long before it becomes a criminal offence to investigate a politician’s personal tax affairs?

We need a bonfire of all restrictions of free speech. But it ain’t gonna happen. 

The immediate threat might ease off for a while, but anyone expecting a permanent retreat will be disappointed. These things are a ratchet, not a pendulum. North Korea, here we come.