Lucy Connolly isn't a ‘political prisoner', she's a right-wing obsession
Lucy Connolly, who used social media to call on Brits to burn down asylum hotels, claims she has been made a “political prisoner” for exercising her freedom of speech. Is this true, or did she simply face the consequence of her own actions?
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In brief…
- Lucy Connolly was freed from prison after serving less than half her prison sentence for inciting racial violence in the UK, after she admitted all charges against her, saying she is considering campaigning for ‘freedom of speech’ in the UK now she has returned home.
- The News Agents say there was no other way for the UK legal system to respond other than impose a tough sentence, due to the existing threats of violence in the country at the time.
- They add that by suggesting there is a corrupt ‘two-tier’ justice system could do enormous damage to UK society, which could be impossible to undo.
What’s the story?
Some facts about Lucy Connolly before we go any further:
- She shared a tweet online calling for people to burn down migrant hotels, during a time of already-inflamed racial tensions in the UK due to recent stabbings in Southport..
- It was not the first time she had used social media to share racist sentiments.
- She pleaded guilty to charges of inciting racial violence.
- Connelly was sentenced to 31 months in prison by a judge, not Keir Starmer.
And still, she's now claiming she has been the Prime Minister's "political prisoner" in interviews with hard-right journalists in the days since being released from prison, after serving less than half of her sentence.
Connolly claims what she said was simply exercising her free speech, and that's true. However, she also experienced the consequences of speech, freely admitting to the crime she was charged with.
She has been championed by the hard-right in the UK, with Kemi Badenoch suggesting her sentencing suggests the Public Order Act is "broken" and Nigel Farage set to speak in defence of Connolly during a speech in the US Congress.
What’s The News Agents’ take?
There may be room for debate around whether or not Lucy Connolly’s sentence of 31 months was too harsh, but there can be no debate about whether she was the Prime Minister’s “political prisoner”, Lewis Goodall says.
“The Prime Minister has nothing whatsoever to do with the personal sentencing of these people. He's completely removed from it, it was a judicial decision,” Lewis says.
Blaming Starmer becomes even more farfetched when you consider that the legislation she was sentenced under was passed in the 1980s under Magaret Thatcher’s Tory government,
Connolly herself pleaded guilty and, when her case went to the court of appeal in May 2025, they ruled that the sentence was not excessive.
“She advocated violence at a moment of national disorder, when the threat of these hotels potentially being burned down was very, very real.
“How else should the state respond?,” Lewis asks.
Those advocating for Connolly on the right seem to be “confused” about the difference between politically motivated speech - which Connolly’s tweet certainly was - and politically motivated justice, he adds.
And while Connolly has become somewhat of a celebrity for the cause, Lewis argues that her case is not that widely recognised, but rather “an obsession of quite a small, committed online right group”.
Nevertheless, he warns of the dangers of high profile politicians suggesting that the British judicial system targets people of a particular political persuasion.
“Once that genie is out of the bottle, once the population at large comes to believe that, that way lies ruin and danger, and it's very hard to undo.”