UK Police Chief Threatens Arrest of Americans Over Online Posts: ‘We’ll Come After You’

“We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you,” Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told Sky News.

Rowley was speaking after riots and street violence broke out across the UK following the mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event that left three young girls dead and others wounded.

What’s truly shocking about this social media crackdown, according to free speech advocates, is that the British government isn’t stopping at its borders. They’re threatening to extradite American citizens from the U.S. to the U.K. to face jail time for violating British rules on political speech online.

A Sky News reporter asked Commissioner Rowley to further explain his warning in August, arguing that high profile US figures have been “whipping up the hatred,” and that “the likes of Elon Musk” have been getting involved.

The reporter then asked what the police force’s plan will be “when it comes to dealing with people who are whipping up this kind of behavior from behind the keyboard who may be in a different country?”

Rowley answered by telling the reporter, “Being a keyboard warrior does not make you safe from the law.”

“You can be guilty of offenses of incitement, of stirring up racial hatred, there are numerous terrorist offenses regarding the publishing of material,” he said.

“All of those offenses are in play if people are provoking hatred and violence on the streets, and we will come after those individuals just as we will physically confront on the streets the thugs and the yobs who are taking — who are causing the problems for communities.”

Responding to the threat, Musk wrote on X: “You have finger guns, we have real guns.”

You have finger guns, we have real guns https://t.co/FphDVTLsDc

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 6, 2025

Musk has made headlines this week for criticizing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s role in refusing to prosecute Jimmy Savile when he was Chief Prosecutor and Director of Public Prosecutions.

In July 2023 it was reported in the Daily Mail that Jimmy Savile victims turned their anger on Sir Keir Starmer over CPS failure to prosecute the serial paedophile. In 2009, child rapist, Jimmy Savile was interviewed under caution by police in Surrey and Sussex. Subsequently, the… pic.twitter.com/1i42dJsR5s

— The Yorkshire Lass (@real_shirelass) January 4, 2025