UK faces twin crises of free speech suppression and Brexit fallout

British police have arrested elderly and disabled people for holding signs that read “I oppose genocide; I support Palestine Action” – the latest escalation in a government crackdown on pro-Palestine activism that critics say betrays decades of free speech rhetoric. Last week, the Home Office blocked US commentators Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker from entering the UK, saying their presence was not “conducive to the public good”. The Guardian reported it was understood both men were blocked because of concerns they could “exacerbate antisemitism”. Earlier, the government proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation with the support of 385 votes in parliament from across the political spectrum. The moves come just as the country marks ten years since the Brexit referendum – a vote that the upcoming BBC series *Brexit: A Very British Civil War*, made by Norma Percy, reveals was born from the “soap-opera dynamics of the Notting Hill set”. According to the documentary, David Cameron and George Osborne promised the in/out referendum in 2013 to placate noisy Eurosceptics, confident they would not win an outright majority and could trade the pledge away to the Lib Dems. George Osborne told the programme: “It was nothing to do with the EU, Britain’s place in the world. It was Game of Thrones. That’s what Boris Johnson was playing. And he could see the Iron Throne right there about to be vacated.” Boris Johnson, Osborne added, “didn’t give a fuck about being prime minister”. The remain campaign had warned of a 6% hit to GDP, but a decade later that forecast has proved too optimistic. The economy is battered, and the national conversation darkens by the day – as the treatment of pro-Palestine protesters shows. Home Office decisions remain opaque, but the message, commentators argue, is unmistakable: there are political causes the British establishment welcomes, and those it fears.