The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, has denied that the issue of free speech has featured in tariff negotiations with the US after reports a deal could be jeopardised by the outcome of a criminal case in Dorset.
The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), an office within the US Department of State, has met the anti-abortion campaigner Livia Tossici-Bolt, who was prosecuted for an alleged breach of a buffer zone outside a Bournemouth abortion clinic. The verdict is due on Friday following a trial at Poole magistrates court.
In a statement after the meeting, posted on X, the bureau said: “US-UK relations share a mutual respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. However, as Vice President JD Vance has said, we are concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom.”
It added: “We are monitoring her case. It is important that the UK respect and protect freedom of expression.”
The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday quoted an unnamed US source who the paper said was familiar with trade negotiations as warning there would be “no free trade without free speech”, when asked about the DRL comments.
When asked about the reports, Reynolds, who heads the Department for Business and Trade, said free speech had not formed part of the trade negotiations in which he had been involved.
He told Times Radio: “Obviously, there are things from different people in the administration that they’ve said in the past about this, but it’s not been part of the trade negotiations that I’ve been part of.”
He later added on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that free speech had not been a “material factor” in negotiations and the concerns were coming from the US state department rather than the US commerce department, which leads on trade.
Keir Starmer said it was likely that Donald Trump’s tariffs would hit the UK but said the government was working on a deal to mitigate the effects.
The prime minister told Sky News on Tuesday: “The likelihood is there will be tariffs. Nobody welcomes that. We are obviously working with the sectors most impacted at pace on that. Nobody wants to see a trade war but I have to act in the national interests.”
That meant “all options remain on the table” in response, he added.
“We are of course negotiating an economic deal which will, I hope mitigate the tariffs,” Starmer said.
Asked if he had been “played” by the US president, who is set to hit the UK with tariffs despite Starmer’s efforts, he said: “The US is our closest ally. Our defence, our security, our intelligence are bound up in a way that no two other countries are.
“So it’s obviously in our national interest to have a close working relationship with the US, which we’ve had for decades, and I want to ensure we have for decades to come.”
He said talks on an economic deal would normally take “months or years” but “in a matter of weeks we have got well advanced in those discussions”.
Downing Street would not comment on Tossici-Bolt’s case. But in relation to measures announced under the last government the prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “The government’s clear that it’s vital that a woman who decides to use abortion services has the right to choose to do so without being subject to harassment or distress, and that’s why the previous government announced rules around that.”
