Winston Marshall — the banjo participant turned podcaster who left Mumford and Sons after supporting anti-Antifa views — could have stunned White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt this week along with his shock query about whether or not the Trump Administration would grant Brits asylum for free-speech points.
However the 37-year-old is useless severe about his campaign to save lots of his residence nation from what he describes as an alarming two-tier justice system: one which’s grown exponentially lately and provides minorities and “marginalized communities” a go whereas sending English grandparents to jail for reposting memes and attending protests..
“Frankly, Britain’s in actual bother, and I really feel very devoted now to my nation and making an attempt to tug it again from the brink,” Marshall instructed The Submit Tuesday. “And so in that sense, it’s essentially the most significant work I’ve ever achieved in my life.”
In February, a 74-year-old Scottish girl was arrested for silently holding up an indication exterior an abortion clinic, asking individuals strolling in in the event that they wished to speak together with her.
Rose Docherty was the primary individual arrested underneath the so-called “Secure Entry Zones Act,” a 2024 legislation forbidding even the peaceable train of speech inside 200 meters of abortion clinics.
Related instances are bobbing up extra usually. In 2023, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested in Birmingham for silently praying exterior a clinic; in 2022 Adam Smith-Connor was charged in Bournemouth for a similar “crime.”
One grandfather, 61-year-old Peter Lynch, who was convicted of violent dysfunction after going to a protest final summer time in entrance of a lodge used to accommodate asylum seekers, died final October whereas serving a two 12 months and eight month jail sentence.
Earlier this 12 months, JD Vance tangled with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over what the vice-president stated was the rising lack of free speech concern within the UK.
“It’s OK to assume in a different way,” Marshall stated. “It was the nice American Thomas Jefferson who stated, if all of us are considering the identical then nobody is considering. So I’m involved concerning the tribalism of all of it, but it surely doesn’t must be that method.”
The BBC reported final fall that 30 individuals within the UK have been arrested over social media posts through the UK riots in August 2024 and at the least 17 have been charged. The racially charged demonstrations came about after three white British ladies have been murdered and a number of other others injured by the teenaged son of Rwandan immigrants.
Marshall — who left Mumford & Sons in 2021 after he caught flak for praising conservative journalist Andy Ngo’s guide “Unmasked” — stated that, since 2023, greater than 250,000 individuals within the UK have been issued summonses for what are referred to as “non-hate crime” incidents.
That was on his thoughts Monday on the White Home, the place the unbiased journalist and podcaster from “The Winston Marshall Present” was in attendance as a part of the Trump administration’s new directive to supply entry to “different” media in addition to legacy reporters.
Referencing “intensive jail sentences for tweets, social media posts and common free speech points,” he requested Leavitt: “Would the Trump administration contemplate asylum for British residents in such a state of affairs?”
Leavitt replied that, whereas “I’ve not heard that proposed to the president … I definitely can discuss to our nationwide safety workforce and see if it’s one thing the administration would entertain.”
Marshall instructed The Submit that he has not met Trump however hopes the president takes his considerations significantly.
“One of many massive classes by all of my experiences is say what you assume, communicate the reality as you see it, and you find yourself attracting individuals who, in the event that they don’t agree with you, they at the least are drawn to the truth that you say what you assume, and I believe that that’s the easiest way to dwell,” he stated.
“My private method by life is to say, communicate, communicate.”
He stated he considers himself a “traditional liberal within the previous English sense” and wouldn’t essentially describe himself as MAGA. He stated he’s in favor of a few of Trump’s insurance policies and never others.
Marshall — who is the son of Sir Paul Marshall, a British tycoon who co-founded the Marshall Wace hedge fund and is the co-owner of GB Information — additionally stated he’s content material with the abrupt swerve his life has taken since leaving the Grammy-winning band.
He not too long ago wrote about choosing up the banjo once more — this time with Virginia folksinger Oliver Anthony ,who organized a low-key music pageant in tiny Spruce Pine, NC, this spring.
“I’ve rebuilt my life now,” stated the podcaster, who additionally has his personal Substack centered on politics, media and societal points. “That was 4 years in the past that I left and I didn’t think about within the slightest of my life taking the trajectory that it has since. However I consider very a lot in working as exhausting as I can on the issues that are in entrance of me.”
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