State department officials are preparing to help Hamit Coskun flee the UK if he loses a “blasphemy case” this week.

The potential intervention is likely to escalate transatlantic tensions over free speech, which critics have claimed is being eroded under Sir Keir Starmer’s Government.

Mr Coskun overturned a conviction for a religiously aggravated public order offence after he burnt the Koran outside the Turkish embassy in London.