A cabinet minister has just hit back at Trump administration’s attempted intervention over freedom of speech in the UK.

The US State Department, responsible for US foreign policy, claimed overnight that it was “concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom”.

The officials said it was in agreement with vice president JD Vance, who accused Europe of being in “retreat” from its key values in a blistering speech in February. 

The US also said it is “monitoring” the prosecution of a British woman, Livia Tossici-Bolt, who held up a sign in an abortion facility buffer zone and who will receive her verdict on Friday.

The Telegraph reported that there may be no free trade deal between the UK and the US without a change of approach.

But business secretary Jonathan Reynolds insisted that the row over free speech has not part played any part in the UK’s negotiations with the US on a tariff-free economic deal.

Speaking to Times Radio, he said: “No, I can say as someone who is very closely part of the issues that are currently being discussed, obviously, there are things from different people in the administration that they’ve said in the past about this, but it’s not been part of the trade negotiations that I’ve been part of.

“We have a strong and proud tradition of free speech. I think we can say we can defend that and be proud of the UK’s record and history in this area.”

Tossici-Bolt, who held a sign reading “here to talk if you want” in an abortion clinic buffer zone, welcomed the US’s support.

According to conservative Christian advocacy group, ADF International, who is supporting her case, she said: “I am grateful to the US State Department for taking note of my case. Great Britain is supposed to be a free country, yet I’ve been dragged through court merely for offering consensual conversation.”

She added: “Peaceful expression is a fundamental right—no one should be criminalised for harmless offers to converse.

“It is tragic to see that the increase of censorship in this country has made the US feel it has to remind us of our shared values and basic civil liberties.”

Tossici-Bolt said she was “grateful to the US administration” and “for engaging in robust diplomacy”.

“It deeply saddens me that the UK is seen as an international embarrassment when it comes to free speech. My case, involving only a mere invitation to speak, is but one example of the extreme and undeniable state of censorship in Great Britain today,” she said.

“It is important that the government actually does respect freedom of expression, as it claims to.”