UK Lawmaker Warns It Is ‘Open Season’ on Christians Amid Growing Free-Speech Concerns

UK Lawmaker Warns It Is ‘Open Season’ on Christians Amid Growing Free-Speech Concerns

Emmitt Barry

• Lord Jackson warns Christians in Britain are facing what he calls “two-tier justice.”
• Finnish Christian lawmaker Päivi Räsänen was initially prevented from traveling to Britain following her Finnish “hate speech” conviction.
• Religious-liberty advocates say the dispute raises broader questions over freedom to publicly express biblical teachings in Europe.
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A senior British lawmaker is warning that Christians increasingly face a double standard under Britain’s justice system, accusing authorities of tolerating extremist Islamist preaching while Christian ministers and believers face scrutiny over traditional biblical beliefs.

Lord Jackson of Peterborough, vice chairman of a parliamentary group focused on religious freedom, told Fox News Digital that it has become “open season” to discriminate against Christians in the United Kingdom.

Jackson raised the alarm while discussing the case of Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen, whose years-long legal battle over her Christian statements concerning marriage and sexuality has become a major European test of religious liberty and freedom of expression.

British authorities canceled Räsänen’s Electronic Travel Authorization in July following her March 2026 conviction by Finland’s Supreme Court over statements contained in a church booklet on marriage and sexuality. She later received a British visa on Aug. 21, but too late to attend a religious-freedom conference in Northern Ireland in person. Räsänen has appealed her Finnish conviction to the European Court of Human Rights.

Jackson said Britain lacks the broad constitutional free-speech protections enjoyed in the United States and argued that Christians are increasingly vulnerable when expressing historic biblical teachings in public.

“Extreme Islamist preachers being allowed to preach in parts of the United Kingdom whilst at the same time Christian pastors are being harassed and arrested on the street, that cannot stand,” Jackson told Fox News.

The controversy is adding to a growing debate across Europe over where governments draw the line between combating genuinely threatening speech and protecting the right of Christians to openly proclaim beliefs that have been part of Western civilization for centuries.