Life must be hard for the Babylon Bee writers. No matter how much you want to satirise the culture, reality catches up and surpasses whatever satire you can think up.
The latest idiocy is a variation on the theme I explored in my previous post: speech monitoring and the use of state power, or, in this case, the likely ignored attempt to use state power to silence wrongthink.
There are so many layers of irony here. By any normal standard, Cleese is a standard-issue liberal, and not even of the center-left variety. We all know him from his days in Monty Python or Fawlty Towers, and he is generally considered a national cultural treasure.
But Cleese is also 86, and the left has passed him by in many ways. Cleese grew up in the days when it was cool to make fun of bowler hats and bureaucrats, which worked particularly well since his targets were class-adjacent, and he was a Cambridge grad. He loved Englishness while poking fun at its absurdities.
These days, loving Englishness is definitely out, and loving Jihadhis is in, and Cleese is having none of it. Which shouldn't surprise you, because Cleese's liberal bent is of the older kind, which doesn't much care for rape gangs, cousin marriage, and niqabs, no less than the occasional bombing or three.
The Islamic male ego becomes so bloated by its lack of restraint that it believes any criticism is blasphemy
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) September 29, 2026
I look forward to being arrested https://t.co/qn73OUKw7P
🚨NEWS: The Islamist organisation 5 Pillars has reported John Cleese to the Prevent Programme after John made factual, accurate and valid statements about Islam
John's statements on Islam:
“To criticise a culture whose holy book advocates the killing of all the people they disagree with...is not racist. It’s culturalist.”
“traditional British values are under attack from Muslim belief systems, especially the Koranic demands to kill ‘infidels’.”
“I personally prefer a culture that does not approve of Female Genital Mutilation, Child Marriage and Killing Infidels.”
“Another religious diktat from the Pro-Paedophila Propaganda Department.”
5 Pillars are a vile organisation who should not exist in the UK
We value freedom of speech and expression especially when it comes to criticising ideologies or religions
Stand with @JohnCleese !
Cleese took a swipe at 5 Pillars, a truly vile extremist organization that is all about spreading Islam in the UK, and publishes a lot of jihad-adjacent content. They have been running a pressure campaign to get his speaking engagements canceled.
They've also reported on Cleese's referral to Prevent, although I am still tracking down whether they actually instigated it. It's certainly possible, and in line with UK policies on "hateful" speech. Ask Lucy Connolly about that. And countless other Brits, for that matter.
Cleese is very much in the JK Rowling position: it's not in the UK government's interest to apply the same rules to him as they do to less well-loved and well-connected figures who have access to legal resources most people don't. The likelihood that they would crack down on him is quite low.
But it would be good if they did. The British state is clamping down hard on freedom of expression, and they have been pretty careful about targeting ordinary people whom they can smear without consequence. When they took on Greg Linehan, the creator of the comedy Father Ted, they created a martyr everybody could identify with.
Prevent, of course, doesn't work anyway. The Southport stabber was a graduate of Prevent — they knew he was dangerous and failed to turn him away from the Dark Side, but it does serve much the same role as gun control laws: it does nothing to deter criminals, but cows the law-abiding.
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