2 February 2026
While in China, the Prime Minister doubled down on his plan to all but abolish our ancient right to trial by jury. The irony was not lost on the Free Speech Union.
The government remains intent on pursuing the biggest assault on English liberty — particularly free speech — in over 800 years. The justification offered by the Secretary of State for Justice and Deputy Prime Minister, David Lammy, is the urgent need to address the backlog of more than 80,000 cases in the Crown Court.
Starmer and Lammy claim that the backlog is delaying justice for victims. They are right. However, their radical and authoritarian proposal will not solve the problem. A report published by the Institute for Government found that the government's proposed reforms would save just 2 per cent of Crown Court time. Cassia Rowland, who authored the report, said: “The government's proposed reforms to jury trials will not fix the problems in the crown court. The time savings from judge-only trials will be marginal at best, amounting to less than 2% of crown court time.”
It is also worth noting that a significant proportion of the 516 Crown courtrooms across England and Wales sit empty each day. In the period from November 2025 to the end of January 2026, more than 64 Crown courtrooms sat empty on working days – that translates to 12 per cent. On 7 November alone, 119 courtrooms sat empty. Meanwhile, the Crown Court backlog is expected to rise from 80,000 to 100,000 cases by 2028. It is clear that jury trials are not the problem.
There are, however, alternative explanations for why the government is pursuing these sinister plans. Ministers appear not to trust the British public to make decisions and show little respect for our constitutional traditions — including Magna Carta, which states in Clause 39 that: “No free man shall be seized, imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, exiled or ruined in any way, nor in any way proceeded against, except by the lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land”.
The Free Speech Union — and many of its members — understand how vital the right to trial by jury is. A textbook example is the case of Royal Marine veteran Jamie Michael, who was accused of stirring up racial hatred and arrested at work. A Labour Party staffer reported Jamie to the police after he posted a 12-minute video on Facebook criticising levels of illegal immigration following the tragic Southport murders. A jury unanimously found him not guilty in just 17 minutes.
The Free Speech Union has been a leading force in the campaign to save jury trials. Just before Christmas, it launched a petition calling on the government to guarantee the right to jury trial, which has already attracted more than 40,000 signatures. Research conducted by the Free Speech Union shows that individuals charged with speech-related offences are almost twice as likely to be acquitted in a Crown Court with a jury than in a magistrates' court without one.
The government's proposals have attracted fierce opposition from judges, lawyers, politicians, and victims of crime, who have warned of their disastrous consequences. They have also created unlikely alliances across Parliament, including Labour MP and former Shadow Attorney General Karl Turner, Conservative Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy, Reform UK MP and former Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick, Jeremy Corbyn, Your Party MP Zarah Sultana, and 52 Liberal Democrat MPs.
Ministers are now facing a rebellion of up to 60 Labour backbench MPs, led by Karl Turner, all of whom have serious reservations. Turner has even threatened to resign from Parliament and trigger a difficult by-election should the government proceed. It has also been reported that two government ministers would be prepared to surrender their red boxes rather than support the proposals.
In a rare joint statement, the four bar associations of Britain and Ireland warned that the plans would undermine public trust in the criminal justice system. In a personal blow to the Prime Minister, his former boss and mentor, the highly respected Edward Fitzgerald KC, described the proposals as “most unfortunate”. In another dent to Starmer's armour, Doughty Street Chambers — where he practised as a human rights lawyer for nearly 20 years — has also criticised the plans. A statement on behalf of its members read: “Trial by jury is a deeply entrenched constitutional principle and anchors our liberal democracy. Jury trials enable people to participate and have a say in their criminal justice system.
“We are firmly opposed to the proposals to remove trial by jury for all but the most serious of crimes. These proposals are wrong in principle, and there is no evidence that they will resolve the current Crown Court backlog.”
While the Prime Minister doubles down, his deputy has suggested he is “open to conversations”. Meanwhile, opposition continues to intensify. The General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, Lord Young, recently chaired a panel discussion at Inner Temple Hall featuring speakers including Labour peer Lord Boateng, retired judge Christopher Kinch KC, and criminal barristers Adam King and Kate O'Raghallaigh.
Lord Boateng, who served as a Cabinet Minister under Tony Blair, delivered an impassioned defence of jury trials, saying: “No government has the right to tamper with this right without an express mandate at the ballot box, because jury power is people power. And power belongs to the people, not to judges or politicians… there is nothing more important, for freedom and for justice.” He went on to condemn David Lammy's “irreversible” plan and cited the words of Lord Devlin: “Once juries are removed for reasons of convenience or efficiency, the process is irreversible.”
Retired judge Christopher Kinch KC said that his years of service at the Bar and on the bench had convinced him that jury trials are the “gold standard – the best system yet devised to decide whether guilt has been proven”. This is a view implicitly acknowledged by the Justice Secretary himself, who intends to retain juries for the most serious cases.
Kate O'Raghallaigh, a rising star of the criminal Bar based at the Prime Minister's former chambers, argued that the life experience jurors bring to trials “levels state overreach” through their ability to nullify “many prosecutions that defy commonsense”. She also criticised David Lammy's claim that defendants of good character who opt for jury trials are “gaming the system”, calling it outrageous.
Another experienced criminal barrister, Adam King, noted that Lammy had succeeded in uniting both left and right against the proposals, with figures such as Shami Chakrabarti standing alongside the independent MP Rupert Lowe. This, he said, was “reassuring” — but also a sign of just how damaging the government's plans are.
Now that the Prime Minister has doubled down, we await the inevitable U-turn his government will be forced to make.
Join the 40,000 who have already signed our petition to save jury trials. You can also watch the full panel discussion on YouTube.
