In her first newspaper interview since her release, Connolly told the Telegraph , externalshe considered herself and “several other people” to “absolutely” be political prisoners of the prime minister.
“I, for some reason, seem to have had the most coverage, but there are people that are in equally awful situations that shouldn’t be in there,” she said, speaking to journalist Allison Pearson, who had campaigned for Connolly’s release.
“I think with Starmer he needs to practise what he preaches.
“He’s a human rights lawyer, so maybe he needs to look at what people’s human rights are; what freedom of speech means; and what the laws are in this country.”
In a separate interview, Connolly said she would be meeting members of Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday, but did not know what they would discuss.
“Just that they’re very interested in the way things are going in the UK, and they are obviously big advocates for free speech, and their lawyers are keen to speak with me,” she told Dan Wootton on his YouTube channel.
A recent report from the US State Department raised concerns around “serious restrictions” on freedom of expression in the UK, pointing to what it said were interventions by government officials “to chill speech” in the wake of the Southport attack.