Nigel Farage is set to raise Lucy Connolly’s imprisonment at a free speech hearing in the US next month. The Reform UK leader will travel to Washington in September to testify to members of Congress about threats to freedom of expression in Britain.

He will bring up Mrs Connolly, who was at the centre of a free speech row over a post on X after the Southport murders last year. The mother-of-one was released on Thursday after being jailed for 31 months over the social media comments.

Mr Farage told The Telegraph that her case would be “a very central point of what I’m discussing”.

The 42-year-old, from Northampton, had pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing “threatening or abusive” written material on X and was jailed at Birmingham Crown Court in October last year.

On July 29, 2024, she had posted on X: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the bastards for all I care … if that makes me racist so be it.”

The former childminder was freed from prison after serving 40% of her 31-month sentence, the automatic release point for her sentence.

Mrs Connolly, the wife of a Tory councillor, will remain on licence until the end of her sentence.

She has described herself as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s “political prisoner” following her release.

It comes after a recent US State Department assessment, which analysed human rights conditions worldwide, flagged “serious restrictions” on freedom of expression in the UK.

After the 2024 Southport attack, the report said Government officials “repeatedly intervened to chill speech”.

US Vice President JD Vance is among those in the US who have expressed concerns about freedom of speech in Britain.