Imran Ahmed and Clare Melford among five Europeans hit with visa bans over claims they wish to ‘suppress American viewpoints they oppose’ Good morning. Christmas is the time of peace on earth and goodwill towards all men. But there is not much sign of that in US/UK relations this morning, where the Trump administration has just sanctioned two Britons, among others, for supposedly trying to suppress free speech in the US, and that has led to the Lib Dem leader Ed Davey engaging in a Twitter war with a senior figure in the US state department. Let’s start with the sanctions. Yesterday Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, issued this statement saying: The State Department is taking decisive action against five individuals who have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose. These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states—in each case targeting American speakers and American companies. As such, I have determined that their entry, presence, or activities in the United States have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States. Today, the United States issued SANCTIONS reinforcing the “red line” I invoked on @GBNEWS. Namely: extraterritorial censorship of Americans. Today’s sanctions target the censorship-NGO ecosystem. These sanctions are visa-related. We aren’t invoking severe Magnitsky-style financial measures, but our message is clear: if you spend your career fomenting censorship of American speech, you’re unwelcome on American soil. None of those sanctioned is a current UK or EU official—however, we know that foreign government officials are actively targeting the United States. This week, the UK’s Liberal Democrats claimed President’s Trump National Security Strategy amounts to “foreign interference” by a “hostile foreign state” because it correctly identifies mass migration and decaying national sovereignty as existential European security concerns. Donald Trump has made it his explicit policy to ‘cultivate resistance’ in the UK and elsewhere. So yes, I think that counts as foreign interference. Continue reading...