ADF, a conservative Christian lobby group that counts among its allies JD Vance, has stated that its goal is to see abortion rights curtailed in Britain
N
igel Farage’s obsession with free speech has become the mood music of his own party, the Conservatives and the BBC, so it shouldn’t have been shocking or troubling to learn that he’d testified in the US Congress on 3 September on the subject of this elemental liberty, and how profoundly at risk it is in the UK.
His position we could recite in our sleep – it hasn’t deviated, and remains nonsense on stilts. Free speech is only at risk in the UK insofar as 80-year-olds can now be arrested for opposing genocide with homemade placards, and that’s quite a big “only”. But in Nigel’s upside-down world he is remorselessly censored, and a leftist cabal is still calling the shots – and will only get stronger. The troubling element wasn’t what he said, but who orchestrated his appearance.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is a conservative Christian lobby group whose allies include JD Vance and speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who used to work as an ADF lawyer. While their focus, brokering Farage’s appearance in Congress (the formal invitation came from the House judiciary committee) is on free speech, the legal challenges they bring, both in the US and internationally, tend to use the issue instrumentally as a way to gain allies in their battle against reproductive rights.
