UK's Starmer says free speech must be protected, but there is a limit

CHEQUERS, England (Reuters) -Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Thursday that Britain "fiercely" protects free speech, but when it was used to incite real harm to children and vulnerable people there was a limit.

"Free speech is one of the founding values of the United Kingdom, and we protect it jealously and fiercely and always will," Starmer told reporters as he stood alongside U.S. President Donald Trump.

"I draw a limit between free speech and the speech of those that want to peddle paedophilia and suicide (on) social media to children," he said.

"Therefore I'm all for free speech, but I'm also for protecting children from things that will harm them."

Britain's new Online Safety Law requires social media companies to remove illegal content on their platforms.

Encouraging self-harm, for example, was made a criminal offence so it was covered by the law.

An attempt by the previous government to ban content that was deemed to "harmful but legal" was abandoned because it risked curbing free speech.

However, police action over social media posts, such as the arrest of Irish comedian Graham Linehan for publishing comments about transgender issues on X earlier this month, had raised questions about how existing laws should apply online.

The police defended Linehan's arrest, but said its officers were in an "impossible position" arbitrating between free speech and criminal content.

(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill in Chequers and Muvija M, writing by Sam Tabahriti and Paul Sandle; Editing by Kate Holton and Michael Holden)