Former Mumford & Sons banjoist Winston Marshall stunned White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt when he called on the Trump administration to grant Brits prosecuted for their speech asylum in the US.

The UK has been accused of hampering free speech ever since Adam Smith-Connor was arrested in 2023 after he refused to leave a safe zone around an abortion clinic designed to protect vulnerable women.

Marshall now claims ‘we have had a quarter of a million people issued non-hate crime incidents’ ever since.

‘As we speak, there are people in prison for quite literally reposting memes,’ he told Leavitt inside the White House Briefing Room on Monday.

‘We have extensive prison  sentences for tweets, social media posts and general free speech issues,’ he continued, before getting to his question.

‘Would the Trump administration consider asylum for British citizens in such a situation?’ the former rock star asked.

Leavitt seemed taken aback by the question, which she called ‘a very good one.’

‘I have not heard that proposed to the president nor have I spoken to him about that idea, but I certainly can talk to our National Security team and see if it’s something the administration would entertain,’ she replied.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt seemed stunned by the question

Marshall became involved in politics following his ouster from the folk rock band in 2021, originally creating a podcast called Marshall Matters for The Spectator – owned by his father, Sir Paul Marshall, according to his website.

He now hosts The Winston Marshall Show, which he started last year.

But as a clip of his interaction inside the White House spread online, many were also left shocked to learn the question came from the former Grammy Award-winning rock star.

‘There’s something about the former banjoist of Mumford & Sons whose dad owns a propaganda channel asking about political asylum over non-existent laws at a White House press conference that feels like it really sums up our era,’ one X user wrote.

Another X user questioned why he was being referred in a post as a ‘British reporter.’

‘Congrats on the new gig, however I miss your banjo days,’ he wrote.

Meanwhile, Sara Higdon, a reporter for the Post Millennial said Marshall was kicked out of the folk rock band ‘for speaking against COVID lockdowns.

‘So it makes sense he is looking to come here,’ she quipped, calling the host of The Winston Marshall Show a ‘great guy.’

Marshall is better known as the banjoist for the folk rock band Mumford & Sons

Marshall described his ouster from the band in a 2021 column for DailyMail.com.

He wrote that he had shared his support for Andy Ngo’s book Unmasked in March of that year.

‘I believed this tweet to be as innocuous as the others. How wrong I turned out to be,’ the former rock star wrote.

‘Over 24 hours it was trending with tens of thousands of angry retweets and comments.

‘I failed to foresee that my commenting on a book critical of the far-left could be interpreted as approval of the equally abhorrent far-right’ who also attacked Marshall when he apologized for his post.

He was then declared a victim of cancel culture.

But the rock star is now speaking up for what he sees as other victims of free speech, including Smith-Connor – whom Vice President JD Vance referenced at his controversial address at Munich Security Conference in Germany when he claimed free speech is ‘in retreat’ in Britain.

In a fiery speech, Vice President JD Vance claimed free speech is ‘in retreat’ in Britain

Vance cited the example of Adam Smith-Connor, who was arrested after he refused to leave a safe zone around an abortion clinic designed to protect vulnerable women

‘A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith-Connor, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and an Army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own,’ the American vice president said in January.

‘After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply it was on behalf of the unborn son he and his former girlfriend had aborted years before.

‘Now, the officers were not moved – Adam was found guilty of (breaking) the Government’s new buffer zones law, which criminalizes silent prayer and other actions that could influence a person’s decision within 200 meters of abortion facility.

‘He was sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution… In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.’

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has since hit out at Vance for those remarks.

‘Well, we’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom and it will last for a very, very long time,’ he said in the aftermath.

‘Certainly, we wouldn’t want to reach across US citizens, and we don’t, and that’s absolutely right, but in relation to free speech in the UK I’m very proud of our history there.’

It is now feared that the row over free speech may hinder the UK’s trade negotiations with President Donald Trump

More recently, the US State Department said it was ‘concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom’ following the prosecution of an anti-abortion campaigner.

In a statement, the State Department said it was ‘monitoring’ the case of Livia Tossici-Bolt, who was prosecuted after holding up a sign saying ‘Here to talk if you want’ outside an abortion clinic.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch agreed and warned earlier this month that free speech is ‘at risk’ in Britain, arguing that the country ‘should not be persecuting people for expressing themselves’ over abortion rights.

The issue over free speech is now is said to have threatened Starmer’s attempts to strike a free trade deal with the US, with the Telegraph reporting a source ‘familiar’ with the negotiations warned there should be ‘no free trade without free speech’.

But Downing Street played down suggestions of the issues featuring in negotiations as the UK seeks to secure a transatlantic economic deal to mitigate the impact of Trump’s global tariffs.