RFK Jr Calls UK ‘Dictatorship’ In Bizarre Rant With Joe Rogan

Robert F Kennedy Jr has called the UK a “dictatorship” over its social media laws in a bizarre attack.

The US health secretary – known for pushing debunked conspiracy theories about vaccinations – compared Britain to the Soviet Union and suggested it was “Kafkaesque” for its crackdown on online hate.

Speaking on the podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience, the Kennedy said: “You look what is happening in England right now. A lot of people are going to jail for Twitter posts.”

“Twelve thousand people in the last year,” Rogan replied.

“It’s just a dictatorship,” Kennedy claimed.

That stat may have come from a report by The Times last year, which revealed around 12,000 people were arrested – not jailed – in 2023 by 37 police forces under UK communication laws.

People may be arrested if their posts online cause distress, are grossly offensive or are of an indecent, obscene or menacing character.

But that can refer to “any form of communication,” and can relate to “serious domestic abuse-related crimes”.

Most arrests did not lead to a prosecution and there was a decrease in the number of arrests from 2022, according to The Times.

Rogan then made a completely misinformed attack on the government’s recent justice reforms.

“Well they got rid of trial by jury. Now it’s just a judge. There’s no reasonable judge by jury for your peers,” the podcast host claimed.

Justice secretary David Lammy does not want to scrap all jury trials, only those where the sentence is likely to be three years or less.

The reforms are meant to help cut back on the severe court backlogs in England and Wales, but have drawn fierce criticism.

Kennedy claimed: “It’s like the Soviets’ system. It’s like Kafka.”

Rogan said: “I can’t believe how quickly it happened. When you look at the social media arrests, they were always disturbing.”

“It really ramped up over the last year, it’s just insane to watch,” he added, claiming much of it stems from “legitimate criticism of immigration” and “people’s outrage, which is completely normal”.

“Instead of doing anything about that, they want to arrest people for complaining,” the host claimed.

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