Eight hundred years ago, in the water meadows of Runnymede, King John was forced to sign Magna Carta. Clause 39 promised that no free man would be imprisoned or punished "except by the lawful judgment of his peers." That single line birthed trial by jury, one of the greatest inventions in the history of human freedom. It took power away from kings, courtiers, and cloaked officials, and handed it to twelve ordinary citizens.
This week, Labour's Justice Secretary David Lammy wants to rip that protection away from almost every criminal case in England and Wales. His excuse? A backlog of 80,000 cases. His solution? Scrap jury trials for everything except murder, rape, and terrorism. The Free Speech Union is right to call this "the biggest assault on our liberties in 800 years." And when you look at the numbers on free-speech cases, the threat becomes chillingly clear.
Why Juries Matter More Than Ever
Imagine you post a meme that offends someone. Or you question a lockdown on social media. Or you misgender someone in a heated pub argument. Under Britain's sprawling speech laws, Section 127 of the Communications Act, the Malicious Communications Act, the Public Order Act, you can face up to two years in prison. Today, you get a jury. Twelve random Britons decide whether your words crossed the line. Tomorrow, under Lammy's plan, you get one judge. One professional. One person who went to the same universities as the prosecutors, attends the same judicial dinners, and has spent decades inside the system.
The statistics are devastating. Over the past decade, defendants in free-speech cases tried by magistrates (no jury) were acquitted just 16% of the time. In Crown Court with a jury? 28%. And in the last twelve months, amid the explosion of "hate speech" prosecutions, juries acquitted a staggering 75% of defendants who pleaded not guilty. Three out of four times, ordinary people looked at the evidence and said: "This isn't a crime." That's why a tyrannical government wants to hit the jury system.
That is not coincidence. It is the jury doing exactly what Magna Carta intended: acting as a firewall between the state and the citizen. Juries bring common sense, diverse life experience, and a healthy suspicion of authority. Judges, for all their learning, are part of the machine. They convict more because they see the world through the lens of precedent, prosecutorial briefings, and judicial guidelines, not the lens of the bloke on the Clapham omnibus.
The Backlog Excuse Doesn't Survive Contact with Reality
Lammy claims victims of serious crime are waiting years for justice. He is right about the backlog, rape trials are now booked into 2028. But the backlog was not created by juries. It was created by governments of both parties who starved the courts of funding, closed half the magistrates' courts, let barristers strike for years over derisory fees, and then shut the entire system down for Covid. The answer is not to downgrade justice; it is to upgrade the system. Build more courtrooms. Hire more judges. Pay barristers properly. Run Saturday sittings. Do what every business does when demand outstrips supply, expand capacity, don't cut quality.
Instead, Lammy wants to give the state a cheaper, faster conviction machine. And the first victims will be the people least able to fight back: the ordinary citizen accused of wrong think.
From Rioters to Memes: The Slippery Slope is Already Here
Remember the summer riots of 2024? Two-tier policing was bad enough. Two-tier justice would be worse. The teenager who throws a brick gets a magistrate. The pensioner who posts "All Lives Matter" gets the same magistrate. No jury to ask whether the law itself has gone mad. No twelve neighbours to say, "Hang on, this is just a daft Facebook rant."
Lord Toby Young of the Free Speech Union puts it bluntly: "Trial by jury is a bulwark of British liberty. If people charged with speech offences are denied that right, they're more likely to be convicted." Nigel Farage calls it "crushing our freedom." Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick warns that without juries, "the law will stray too far from the values of the people it serves."
They are all correct. This is not about efficiency. This is about control.
A Simple Defence of the Jury
1.Juries protect the innocent from overzealous prosecution.
2.Juries force the state to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt to ordinary people, not insiders.
3.Juries remind judges that the law belongs to the public, not the profession.
4.Juries are the reason Britain never needed a written constitution, because the people themselves sat in judgment.
Every tyrant hates juries. Napoleon abolished them. The Soviet Union never had them. Star Chambers flourished when juries were weak. When juries are strong, liberty breathes.
Eight centuries ago, barons forced a king to concede that power belongs to the people. This week, a Labour government wants to take it back.
The jury box is not a luxury. It is the last room where the state has to ask permission before it locks you up.