The Free Speech Union heads to Downing Street to save jury trials and meets Larry the Cat

Max Thompson, Campaigns Officer

20 October 2026

On Monday, the Free Speech Union headed to 10 Downing Street to deliver our petition to save jury trials.

The General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, Lord Young of Acton, headed to the famous door to deliver the petition to the Prime Minister, accompanied by Sam Armstrong, Director of Legislative Affairs; Stephen O'Grady, Director of Projects; Ben Jones, Director of Case Management; Jan Macvarish, Director of National Engagement; Celeste Warren, Case Management Supervisor; and me. We even got to meet Larry, who seemed very supportive of our cause.

Last December, the Starmer Government announced plans to significantly curb our ancient and precious right to trial by jury — a right that was codified in Magna Carta 1215.

David Lammy, then Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, who announced the proposal, claimed that the only way to bring down the backlog of 80,000 cases in the Crown Court was to curb our right to a jury trial. He said this despite having — as the House of Commons Justice Select Committee pointed out — no credible evidence to back him up. In fact, both the Institute for Government, in a report published in January, and the new Chair of the Criminal Bar Association have said that these reforms would save only 2 per cent of Crown Court time, not the 20 per cent that ministers promised.

The Free Speech Union's own research has shown that those charged with speech-related offences are almost twice as likely to be found not guilty in a Crown Court with a jury than in a magistrates' court without one. Put simply, more people will be locked up if David Lammy's plans reach the statute book.

At the Free Speech Union, we know how vital jury trials are in speech cases. Royal Marine veteran Jamie Michael was arrested at work after a staffer working for a Labour Member of the Senedd reported his twelve-minute Facebook video, in which he called on people to exercise their democratic right to protest peacefully against mass migration in the wake of the heinous Southport murders. He was held in custody and denied bail. With the support of the Free Speech Union, he was found not guilty by a jury of his peers in just seventeen minutes.

Jury trials are a cornerstone of our criminal justice system and a bulwark against a repressive state and the increasingly militant cancel-culture mob.

During the Makerfield by-election, Andy Burnham called on the then Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, to "pause" the jury trial reforms, and called the right to a jury trial a "lynchpin of a fair society". Since entering Downing Street, he has obfuscated.

Andy Burnham and his new Justice Secretary, Alex Norris, have moved an inch, announcing that they have ditched David Lammy's plan for judge-only trials in cases where defendants face a prison sentence of less than three years; but the plans to curb our right to a trial by jury remain very much alive. This is, of course, welcome news, but ministers are still planning to press ahead with abolishing the historic right to elect for a jury trial, claiming that it is the most effective way of bringing down the backlog of 80,000 cases in the Crown Court.

As The Times reported, ministers could extend jury-less trials "by a stroke of a pen". That should send a shiver down the spine of anyone who values English liberty — particularly free speech.

This has been one of the biggest campaigns the Free Speech Union has fought over the last year, and we are incredibly grateful to everyone who signed our petition.

The fight goes on.