Winston Marshall — the banjo player turned podcaster who left Mumford and Sons after supporting anti-Antifa views — may have surprised White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt this week with his shock question about whether the Trump Administration would grant Brits asylum for free-speech issues.
But the 37-year-old is dead serious about his crusade to save his home country from what he describes as an alarming two-tier justice system: one that’s grown exponentially in recent years and gives minorities and “marginalized communities” a pass while sending English grandparents to jail for reposting memes and attending protests..
“Frankly, Britain’s in real trouble, and I feel very dedicated now to my country and trying to pull it back from the brink,” Marshall told The Post Tuesday. “And so in that sense, it’s the most meaningful work I’ve ever done in my life.”
In February, a 74-year-old Scottish woman was arrested for silently holding up a sign outside an abortion clinic, asking people walking in if they wanted to chat with her.
Rose Docherty was the first person arrested under the so-called “Safe Access Zones Act,” a 2024 law forbidding even the peaceful exercise of speech within 200 meters of abortion clinics.
Similar cases are springing up more often. In 2023, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested in Birmingham for silently praying outside a clinic; in 2022 Adam Smith-Connor was charged in Bournemouth for the same “crime.”
One grandfather, 61-year-old Peter Lynch, who was convicted of violent disorder after going to a protest last summer in front of a hotel used to house asylum seekers, died last October while serving a two year and eight month prison sentence.
Earlier this year, JD Vance tangled with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over what the vice-president said was the growing loss of free speech issue in the UK.
“It’s OK to think differently,” Marshall said. “It was the great American Thomas Jefferson who said, if we all are thinking the same then no one is thinking. So I am concerned about the tribalism of it all, but it does not need to be that way.”
The BBC reported last fall that 30 people in the UK were arrested over social media posts during the UK riots in August 2024 and at least 17 were charged. The racially charged demonstrations took place after three white British girls were murdered and several others injured by the teenaged son of Rwandan immigrants.
Marshall — who left Mumford & Sons in 2021 after he caught flak for praising conservative journalist Andy Ngo’s book “Unmasked” — said that, since 2023, more than 250,000 people in the UK have been issued summonses for what are called “non-hate crime” incidents.
That was on his mind Monday at the White House, where the independent journalist and podcaster from “The Winston Marshall Show” was in attendance as part of the Trump administration’s new directive to offer access to “alternative” media as well as legacy reporters.
Referencing “extensive prison sentences for tweets, social media posts and general free speech issues,” he asked Leavitt: “Would the Trump administration consider asylum for British citizens in such a situation?”
Leavitt replied that, while “I have not heard that proposed to the president … I certainly can talk to our national security team and see if it’s something the administration would entertain.”
Marshall told The Post that he has not met Trump but hopes the president takes his concerns seriously.
“One of the big lessons through all of my experiences is say what you think, speak the truth as you see it, and you end up attracting people who, if they don’t agree with you, they at least are attracted to the fact that you say what you think, and I think that that’s the best way to live,” he said.
“My personal way through life is to say, speak, speak.”
He said he considers himself a “classic liberal in the old English sense” and would not necessarily describe himself as MAGA. He said he is in favor of some of Trump’s policies and not others.
Marshall — who is the son of Sir Paul Marshall, a British tycoon who co-founded the Marshall Wace hedge fund and is the co-owner of GB News — also said he is content with the abrupt swerve his life has taken since leaving the Grammy-winning band.
He recently wrote about picking up the banjo again — this time with Virginia folksinger Oliver Anthony ,who organized a low-key music festival in tiny Spruce Pine, NC, this spring.
“I have rebuilt my life now,” said the podcaster, who also has his own Substack focused on politics, media and societal issues. “That was four years ago that I left and I didn’t imagine in the slightest of my life taking the trajectory that it has since. But I believe very much in working as hard as I can at the things that are in front of me.”
