British activist Kellie-Jay Keen received a phone call from the Metropolitan Police. She then turned a recording of the call into a Lego-style animated video and posted it on social media.

The officer on the line informed Keen she was under two separate investigations.

The first concerned a speech she gave at a rally in which she called for Islam to be removed from British classrooms and institutions. The second concerned a series of tweets — including one about "Muslim fatigue" listing gang rapes, terrorism, Sharia courts, female genital mutilation, and the "two-tier system," and another calling Islam "a vile woman-hating marrying child rape hazing death."

The charge being considered was malicious communications, with the officer explaining the offence does not require criminal intent — only that someone read the tweet, took offence, and made a report.

"Malicious communications is about somebody's feelings," Keen asked on the call, "irrespective of whether or not it's a criminal sentiment. It's just if someone doesn't like it, the police have got some time on their hands."

The officer invited her to a "voluntary" interview at a London police station, under caution, with anything she said usable as evidence against her. She declined. "I think what we can do here is test the elasticity of pace," she told the officer pleasantly.

Ezra noted the trap embedded in the offer.

Go Ad Free

A voluntary interview where your words can be used against you, conducted by professional interrogators, is an invitation most ordinary people — especially working-class Britons who can't afford a lawyer — would walk into unarmed and terrified. 

Keen pointed out that in 2017, when she was first contacted about tweeting that it was wrong to castrate children, she was told that if she refused the voluntary interview and was subsequently pulled over for speeding, she could be arrested on the spot.

"For most law-abiding people who aren't used to how terrifying the police have become," she said, "they have become the thought police."

The Metropolitan Police, Keen said, has more than 100 officers whose sole job is monitoring social media. The Times of London has reported 30 people are arrested per day in the UK for non-crime hate incidents, a figure that does not include cases like Keen's where the caller was not arrested.

A woman who photographed a migrant hotel and posted about it online was recently arrested at home by three officers while caring for her elderly mother with Alzheimer's. Meanwhile, Keen said, if you are burgled, sometimes even if someone is in your house, the police do not come out.

The broader picture Keen described is one of a country where 80 Sharia courts operate openly, not a single female genital mutilation case has ever been prosecuted, 25% of meat is halal-slaughtered with only 6% of the population Muslim, the call to prayer is broadcast in some cities, and more and more women are wearing the niqab.

"There are 50-plus countries where if you want to go and live like that, you can," she said. "But the UK is not one of those countries. And if we don't speak about it now, there will come a time when nobody can."

Ezra also pointed out that Keen is also banned from entering Canada, and he is banned from the United Kingdom. 

"We'll have to meet in the middle of the Atlantic," he said, "and have a conference of the exiles."