ColumnistsDonald TrumpEppingFeaturedFrancis Fosterfreedom of speechKonstantin KisinLucy ConnollyNon-crime hate incidentsonline safety billSir Keir Starmer MP

Sarah Ingham: Free speech in “A free country” includes interviewing Tommy Robinson

Dr Sarah Ingham is the author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.

 It’s not often that the gorgeous, pouting Hollywood starlet Amber Heard gets mixed up with the schoolmarmish former Home Secretary Amber Rudd.  T

he confusion was one of the few light moments in an interview with that anti-hero of Britain’s political fringe – Tommy Robinson. For almost three hours, Francis Foster and Konstantin Kisin grilled Luton’s most infamous son for their podcast, Triggernometry.

Dropping on Sunday evening, by Tuesday it had hit one million views on YouTube.

Football hooligan, alleged far-right thug, alleged racist, rabble-rousing former head of the defunct English Defence League, jailbird.

Such is Robinson’s reputation, even fans of primary source material might hesitate before getting anything straight from this horse’s mouth.

Was giving him the oxygen of publicity wise?

For the best part of 20 years, Robinson has been the Cassandra of Britain’s multiculturalism, his predictions destined never to be taken seriously. With four spells in prison, one involving the supreme stupidity of going to America on a mate’s passport, he didn’t deserve to be taken seriously. His claims to be a journalist seem as silly as playing down his real name, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

But Robinson has also turned out to be Chumbawamba’s Tubthumper: just as the 1997 hit almost said, he gets knocked down, but he gets up again, you’re never gonna keep him down.  Via a Newsnight encounter with Jeremy Paxman at peak sneer,  Jordan Peterson and giving a talk at the Oxford Union, he has gone from being spat at and punched, to hugged and having his hand shaken.

Robinson is white working class (half Irish) English he is now in his forties and a father of three.

The Luton Robinson grew up in was a multi-racially balanced town, but the demographic changed. There was just one mosque in the mid 80s, by 2014 there were 30. Bright but poorly educated, there is no doubt what Robinson’s specialist subject on Mastermind would be.  Unlike most of us, he has read the Koran, helped along by 22 weeks in solitary.

The England he knows is one of grooming gangs, cowered authorities appeasing one community at the expense of another and, long before Sir Keir arrived in No.10, two-tier justice and policing.

Triggernometry has long championed free speech. In the episode, An Honest Conversation with Tommy Robinson, the trio chewed over the once common phrase, “It’s a free country.” Even as a sarcastic retort, it’s now rarely heard.

Non-Crime Hate Incidents; the Online Safety Act; citizens like Lucy Connolly imprisoned for 300 days and counting for an intemperate tweet. With the working group on defining Islamophobia due to report shortly, it is time for all policymakers, but especially the Conservative Opposition which inflicted much of this upon us when in power, to take a long hard look at what the crackdown on free speech is achieving.

By the standards of the former Soviet Union, Iran and other benighted parts of the globe, Britain is free. But compared to the United States, where citizens are shocked by state overreach reflected by jail for tweets, Britain today has moved closer to the Soviet end of the free country spectrum.

In the overshadowing presence of Donald Trump, PM Starmer stated that Britain has had free speech for a “very, very long time.”  This is as meaningless as the smug Brits who used to tell themselves they have the best television in the world – impervious to the rise of HBO, Netflix and the other streaming services.

Robinson now has just enough self-knowledge to keep away from places like Epping, one of the many towns where local people are demonstrating against the influx of illegal migrants. In giving the small boat people hand-outs and immediate access to housing and public services, whether it is their intention, the authorities are making it clear whose side they are on – and it is not the ‘locals’.

Tommy Robinson is a messenger, who has lived up close and personal with the demographic change that England in particular, but especially poorer parts of England, has gone through in recent decades. He gets Epping, Canary Wharf and all the other protest hotspots across the country: they could well get him. If as some say “Tommy has a point”, whose fault is that?

Illegal migrant crossings have just passed 50,000 in the past year: Labour is failing.

In what could be yet another attempt to undermine Britain as a free country, the government wants to set up a Police national intelligence investigations team to monitor social media. It only highlights ministers’ impotence. Instead of hunting down messengers, politicians and officials should be getting the message from the places of protest.

Triggernometry went where none of the mainstream media – especially the feather-bedded BBC – want to venture.  The interview highlights the power and the positives of social media and free speech, chiefly that the audience is trusted enough to make up their own minds.

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