Tommy Robinson was arrested outside of a London courthouse and pled guilty to obstructing a court case involving Muslim rape gangs. The judge issued a gag order preventing media coverage of the case and any discussion of it in order to protect the ongoing grooming case against him.
00:00:00.000All right, Andrew, Tommy Robinson, what are we going to make of this latest episode?
00:00:10.700I would say that the two of us, I can tell, are rather ambivalent about what just happened to Tommy Robinson.
00:00:21.720He was, of course, arrested outside of a London courthouse and was apparently pled guilty to obstructing this trial.
00:00:35.160But I think that both of us are rather ambivalent about it.
00:00:39.080And I would say that from a, you know, on both an emotional and an intellectual level, both of us are probably in the same place in the sense that we get the outrage.
00:00:55.020But there are other deeper questions to it.
00:00:59.360It's not as simple as many people are making it on Twitter, you know, believe it or not.
00:01:06.360But let me first just lay down the emotional response to this, which I see almost universally, with a few exceptions, on social media.
00:01:20.960And that is that there's no more free speech in Britain, which isn't exactly wrong, and that Tommy Robinson was doing journalism.
00:01:32.220He was trying to report on this case that had a gag order on it about Muslim rape gangs, and that a malicious and hypocritical establishment is cracking down on him.
00:01:48.020They found that this was their opportunity, their moment to pounce.
00:01:52.280They did, and they want to put him in jail for 13 months, where he will likely be killed.
00:01:58.200Let's, let's try to, that is the narrative, at least from a wide swath of the alt-right, the alt-light, mainstream conservatives, the Drudge Report, Alex Jones, etc.
00:02:13.380Let's dive into this a little bit, and, and I actually want to ask you some questions about this, because this gets into arcane, well, I shouldn't say arcane, just indigenous legal norms of the, of the English system that are a little bit surprising for outsiders.
00:02:35.500So, first off, what kind of gag order was issued around this case, and what does that actually entail?
00:02:50.840This is something that, this is something that, there are some similarities in the American system, you know, most of our listeners are from North America, by no means all, in, in which, you know, a, a, a prosecutor and a defendant would not want, and a judge would not want a jury prejudice, so that if, if something is just absolutely sensational, they will move to hold the trial in a different region or something like this.
00:03:19.240What is, what is going on with the gag order?
00:03:22.960Because I think from the start, this thing strikes me, and, and I, and probably most other people as, as a bit odd, and it just, it just seems unfair.
00:03:32.280It seems, you know, one looks at it, and one thinks that the government is trying to suppress reasonable discussion about this extremely sensitive topic.
00:03:43.580Yeah, I think this question of, of fairness and how fair the whole episode was or is, comes down to how we, how we form our perspective of what actually happened.
00:04:00.660And there's a lot of layers to what happened, and there's a lot of pretext to what happened.
00:04:06.280And to answer the first question, the gag order is, is, is fairly straightforward.
00:04:11.660What it basically did was it, it produced an injunction against press or media reporting of what was going on in the courtroom in relation to Tommy Robinson, not necessarily, and this is what the judge herself explained,
00:04:28.860not necessarily because of anything that was said to Tommy Robinson or the specifics of what he is, was alleged to have done in order to be arrested,
00:04:42.900but rather to protect the ongoing grooming case, which, which was still active at that time.
00:04:50.240For reasons which have never been adequately explained, this grooming case has been shrouded in a media taboo.
00:05:02.240And if the British government and the British establishment wish to present themselves as being open and fair about these,
00:05:11.420these, these grooming cases, these, these, these, these, these prolific cases,
00:05:16.600then they're really going the wrong way about it by shrouding them in secrecy like this in such a way that would,
00:05:23.300it would attract someone like Tommy Robinson to come and provoke court officials and provoke the legal system and provoke the media
00:05:34.260into devoting some attention to, to these neglected cases and these, these shrouded cases.
00:05:41.640So there's the, right in the origins of this,
00:05:45.620what we're really coming back to is the fact that these grooming scandal,
00:05:50.260legal cases are mired in media and attention,
00:05:57.580legal obscurity and a general kind of keeping away from the public.
00:06:05.220And that builds tension and the tension that's certainly there in England,
00:06:10.620in particular um but is this normal i mean are are other cases given this gag order or is it
00:06:17.660done on a case-by-case basis or is this normal for when a trial is ongoing that reports are not made
00:06:26.540yeah insensitive cases and they normally are rape cases gag orders are certainly more common
00:06:35.120um in some for drug dealing cases uh where witness protection may be an issue and uh
00:06:44.080the uh the protection of certain evidence or the reliability of certain evidence
00:06:50.040gag orders uh certainly have have been put in place um a number of celebrities um who've been
00:06:57.820accused of crimes have been successful in the past in securing uh gag or gag orders against the
00:07:06.080press and the press have challenged that and sometimes they've been successful in discovering
00:07:09.740the identity of the celebrity who's going on trial for a particular offense and in many cases the
00:07:14.400media has been unsuccessful um the terms of it are normally decided on a case-by-case basis and it
00:07:20.700can vary uh according to the uh according to the desires of the judge in that particular case
00:07:26.900so it's the problem really though is that it seems to be almost systematic uh when it comes to these
00:07:35.240muslim grooming scandals that's not to say that the press hasn't reported on many of them it just
00:07:41.720seems that there seems to be a slightly higher uh number of instances in which these gag orders have
00:07:47.880been imposed in these cases now it's my understanding based on the names of the defendants in this
00:07:53.820particular case that uh the majority of them had already been imprisoned uh and were still in prison
00:08:01.680for similar offenses uh that they were accused on uh of in this particular trial so why it would be
00:08:10.660controversial to uh let the public know that convicted rapists are standing trial again uh for another
00:08:21.120set of charges it kind of baffles me and i can fully understand why someone like tommy robinson would
00:08:28.600want to go and and be provocative in such an atmosphere and and poke at that and prod at that
00:08:34.500and see what happens but in terms of what actually happened that day um there are there are kind of
00:08:42.540three different angles that you can come at to try and get at the truth uh as far as it can be
00:08:50.360established now you you mentioned there the kind of the emotional social media narrative which is
00:08:55.620the tommy robinson was kind of innocently so he was standing outside he kind of wanted to break this
00:09:01.040media taboo on the grooming gangs um he's kind of the brave working class hero he's arrested and
00:09:08.980imprisoned arbitrarily and and the media is gagged uh vindictive in a kind of vindictive measure
00:09:16.460to to just uh hush up this this scandal against free speech in britain so that's that's the kind of
00:09:25.560narrative that's the kind of narrative that spread like wildfire um then there's also you if you want
00:09:31.680it you can investigate the available footage now i i looked on on the day for uh footage recorded from
00:09:39.700different individuals uh longer footage but all i could find was a very short piece of footage from
00:09:47.240tommy robinson's own cell phone um from his perspective uh there's a kind of preamble a conversation
00:09:54.560between him and some of his colleagues it's a little bit kind of jokey it's a little bit this
00:09:58.340is what i'm doing i'm standing outside court uh there's a rape trial going on inside and tommy
00:10:03.220robinson actually sounds like he's being very careful about his use of language but someone beside him
00:10:08.920can clearly be heard saying these these people should be should be taken out and hanged um i think
00:10:14.940he says if if they're guilty that they should be taken out and hanged but that's what he says and
00:10:18.980there's a bit of laughing and at that point it seems like tommy robinson is an understandable response
00:10:24.440to be honest yeah he's approached by a female police officer um who says something to the fact
00:10:30.180i'm just going to introduce you here to my colleague who's going to and then and then
00:10:34.540tom robinson says am i under arrest and then this place this particular police officer does proceed
00:10:39.000down to arrest tommy robinson is that again what you said earlier about fairness is that fair um
00:10:47.020of course it's not it's not fair um to to be arrested for such an innocuous exchange of
00:10:53.940of opinions uh outside of a courtroom uh and with state with statements uh which are kind of
00:11:02.320they're hyperbolic uh they're they're not meant seriously we're not talking about someone who's
00:11:08.320standing outside the courtroom calling to for an organized posse right to lynch uh the defendant
00:11:13.840someone says well if they're guilty in my opinion they should be hanged um to arrest tommy robinson
00:11:20.700in those circumstances for uh breach of the peace is a gross injustice in my opinion and uh it was
00:11:31.820performed if not with some degree of calculation then out of absolutely appalling ignorant overzealousness
00:11:40.580and it's it's almost inexcusable um tommy robinson was then of course taken inside whenever you look
00:11:47.740up leeds crown court schedule for that day you can see that he was he was pretty much brought before
00:11:52.520the judge instantly um the gagging order was put in place before it was put in place the media rushed
00:11:58.680to get the story out so whenever i first heard about it happened i i googled and there were dozens of
00:12:05.980hits but when you clicked on them by that point the gag order had been imposed and it said sorry this
00:12:10.280this link is unavailable um so it was kind of that quick everything happened that quickly
00:12:16.280so you can see based on the footage uh why the uh why the kind of the emotional reaction would would
00:12:27.100really spread like wildfire but there is a kind of a third way of looking at the entire scenario and
00:12:32.860that's by looking at some of the context to all of this one of the one of the contexts is that
00:12:38.640tommy robinson had a he had a suspended sentence hanging over him and the suspended sentence was
00:12:44.480for contempt of court and that was for uh the last time these defendants or one of the last occasions
00:12:50.120on which these defendants went on trial for these uh offenses tommy robinson filmed inside of
00:13:00.160the courtroom or attempted to film the courtroom or attempted to film the defendants uh within the court
00:13:06.200precincts and that is illegal in the united kingdom uh under the 1925 criminal justice act uh it's it's
00:13:15.640illegal to attempt to record film or even uh try to depict the likeness of a defendant in an ongoing trial
00:13:25.180it's not like um the united states where you can go to crime tv and watch a case as it happens
00:13:33.020right or but but actually um it's it's slightly different than that and in most federal courtrooms
00:13:40.240uh cell phones are confiscated as you enter um and so there there there is a i i do think there is a
00:13:50.240general decorum uh as it were of of not not making clandestine uh recordings um not you know turning
00:14:00.600a court into a a circus-like atmosphere i i was in federal court not too long about a year ago actually
00:14:06.260um and we could not take um recording equipment inside i.e and you know of course an iphone is a
00:14:13.240effectively a better video camera than was uh than these massive things you you we had uh you know 20
00:14:21.860years ago so um uh that that is not particularly unusual and you know at this this is where i'm
00:14:29.900ambivalent about this whole thing because i mean i have never made a secret of my criticism of tommy
00:14:39.860robinson's ideology and we will we'll get more into this later this this anti-jihad group of people
00:14:46.580and so on um that being said i mean i recognize that the system is against him and so one can rightfully
00:14:59.400ask should you play by the rules if the system hates you this much the system is unfair the system
00:15:07.920wants to crack down on you shouldn't you thus act like a real dissident and and and and in a way push
00:15:16.840the system to its limits and so on um almost in an alinsky like fashion uh i i think that's a
00:15:23.700that's a legitimate line that being said on the other hand as as you tweeted out uh on the day it
00:15:31.640happened you know it's it's smarter to fight another day sometimes it you know we you know it's
00:15:40.220one thing to just go right full frontal go right into the belly of the beast or or just attack your
00:15:49.160opponent um you know you you've got a a couple of soldiers together and you just do a a rampage you
00:15:57.640know bull rush of the other opposing army there there's something about that that is simply
00:16:03.780unwise or even stupid i mean he was putting himself in all in major jeopardy by simply doing this and
00:16:15.460was the was his potential gains of you know snapping photos or or or just documenting this on a on a
00:16:25.200little camera or maybe a gopro or something was was that were those gains worth that risk and i guess
00:16:33.480one could ask then an additional question was he attempting to make a scene to the degree that he
00:16:42.300would be arrested and there would be this big blow up and you know and then an additional question
00:16:49.360after that is in a way the outrage a good or bad are we just are we kind of going along with this
00:16:57.740even though there's there's not a lot to it or actually is supporting tommy robinson because tommy
00:17:03.000robinson is brave there's there's no question about it um but is is getting excited about this you know
00:17:12.520tommy in a way kind of you know sacrificing himself uh are we are are we kind of getting
00:17:20.760go getting following a red herring um these are all important questions and i'm somewhat ambivalent
00:17:28.700about each of those actually i am i am too um on the first point that this business of um you see a kind
00:17:38.480oppressive structure or oppressive sets of laws uh you disagree with them and you want to protest them
00:17:48.700by willfully breaking them um i if that was the case um and i part of me thinks that tommy robinson
00:17:59.780did not want to get arrested that day um i didn't see it in the footage but people told me
00:18:06.440that he could be heard saying um you know i'm outside the court precincts aren't i and he was
00:18:14.080kind of like constantly trying to reassure himself with the police that that he that he wasn't
00:18:19.900entering into what would be considered court precincts and recording um and in other words he was mindful
00:18:27.000of his suspended sentence he said something to the effect of i need a solicitor because i'm i'm on a
00:18:33.560suspended sentence and this leads me he said that after his arrest yeah that leads me to believe
00:18:39.580that he was not doing this as a publicity stunt yeah and i don't i don't i don't think he was i
00:18:46.240don't think he was i think he kind of fell into a trap more than anything but to come back to this
00:18:52.380issue of okay say he to come back to the the offense that he got the suspended sentence for which
00:19:00.160was a quite deliberate contempt of court i mean he he basically has previous for uh wanting to stick
00:19:07.800two fingers up to the establishment and say look i'm going to go i know this is illegal i'm going to
00:19:12.320go and film these defendants in court anyway because i believe that that's what should be done uh whether
00:19:17.460it's illegal or not i don't think that i i can sympathize with that i can sympathize with wanting
00:19:23.860to get the faces of these people out there and bring more publicity uh to the to the ongoing trial
00:19:31.540but the contempt of court legislation is it kind of is regarded as pretty much a pillar of british
00:19:41.080justice whether it's being used in the service of justice or not that's how it's seen and that's
00:19:46.260how it's perceived so to attack something like that and to attack the principle of our courts will
00:19:53.180offer anonymity in certain cases and there will be no filming in our courts that's really difficult
00:20:01.460and you're already setting yourself an uphill struggle to try and win over public opinion to
00:20:06.400your cause based on something like that there are other laws you can you can push at uh i can think of
00:20:13.420something like the hate speech laws or the malicious communications act which have been brought in
00:20:18.240you know the the business of count dankula the scottish guy who you know who's got a criminal
00:20:24.160conviction for his dog saluting and things like this these are cases which which normies will take
00:20:28.900notice of and say you know what that was that was excessive um and and they do have a certain degree of
00:20:35.560of propaganda value sure but but to to kind of go in uh and try to undermine contempt of court
00:20:43.080legislation it's it's perhaps not tactically sensible and in some respects tommy robinson was
00:20:52.040lucky to get a suspended sentence in that case uh given how severely some people who've uh
00:21:00.320criticized jews or put facebook posts about blacks in britain have been treated where it's immediate
00:21:05.800prison sentences of up to four years in one case the guy got for facebook posts that guy was lawrence burns
00:21:11.520um so tommy robinson was was given the benefit of the doubt even for quite flagrantly breaking that law
00:21:20.760and was given a suspended sentence and told to behave himself and uh i i he was perhaps
00:21:28.300careless or he was perhaps uh a bit naive in expecting that he could go to this courtroom and
00:21:35.200that they wouldn't be gunning for him or you know keeping a close eye on him with a view to arresting
00:21:40.720him at the slightest hint that there may be anything untoward in his behavior and him simply having a
00:21:48.360discussion with this guy where the words were exchanged to the effect that the defendants have
00:21:52.660found guilty should be hanged seemed to have been all the pretext that was required by these particular
00:21:57.000police officers to place him under arrest and trigger that suspended sentence so there's a naivety
00:22:03.280there um all of us at various times in our lives have been uh guilty of of naivety i you know someone
00:22:12.360could point at charlottesville and say that there was naivety there in terms of expectations of how law
00:22:17.760enforcement would behave themselves so we we can we find it difficult to condemn tommy robinson if not
00:22:24.160for uh any other reason than for his uh naivety um we we certainly can't uh stand by as as people
00:22:32.560innocent of the same thing but it's still there's still the ambivalence that just runs right the way
00:22:37.840through this um i think the second question or sort of proposition that you you put forward there was
00:22:45.480was was there a chance that he kind of did this deliberately for publicity um i think we can
00:22:51.140probably agree that that he didn't um and then your your final uh comment on this this whole episode
00:23:00.780was was it something to the effect of um well is the outrage good or bad i mean yeah you know it's
00:23:08.860and these are all questions it's funny how it's funny just how ambivalent we are in this podcast
00:23:14.840usually we have strong up down opinions but i i actually am i'm rather ambivalent
00:23:20.880this time and i and i certainly don't want to i i don't want to throw brave people even if they
00:23:26.600have an incorrect ideology you know like count dankula has a terrible stupid ideology but i'm not
00:23:34.300going to throw him under the bus you know it's not the right time you know if if late if a year from
00:23:39.700now he he does some rally where he you know expounds on his you know libertarian communism or whatever
00:23:46.940the hell it is then i'll be like look this is this is stupid but right now it just seems wrong to
00:23:56.120throw tommy under the bus he is he is a brave guy i i think his gut is in the right place um but you
00:24:05.560know and we say oh is he is he is his head in the right place well look tommy is not an intellectual
00:24:11.720he's not i i i think that's expecting just too much of tommy of of who he is i mean he is a guy at
00:24:20.240the pub basically and he he does seem on a on a gut level to understand the demographic demographic
00:24:31.280implications the the the identitarian implications the racial implications but
00:24:35.500you know whether this was the right battle to fight just it should be reasonably questioned
00:24:44.960and that doesn't mean that we don't you know have have a kind of moral support for him you know it's
00:24:52.340like you know we're with you you're a fighter but you know what one can you know offer good faith
00:24:59.500criticism of him i think it is interesting to ask you know there is so much outrage he has bright
00:25:04.920well breitbart actually took down an article on him by the way but he has you know the drudge report
00:25:09.700the the kind of breitbart crowd is on his side the alt-right is on his side i would say most of the
00:25:15.520alt-right is kind of like this is an outrage um uh libertarians too so you know there might be
00:25:22.940one could say that just this kind of awareness of of the issue um awareness of the double standards
00:25:32.080of the of the system and and and so on you know they they would not i i do think it is reasonable
00:25:38.480to say that they would not do this to other people um you know or maybe they would i don't know but
00:25:44.740it's you know is there something good about this outrage i'm ambivalent about that i i think there
00:25:50.520it is obviously you know one one needs you know points you know fissures that people get excited
00:25:58.020about what one can see a fissure and be a a a point of salience and say all right let's focus on this
00:26:04.760but i i have to be honest um i'm i'm getting a little i i am getting a little bit tired of this
00:26:14.740just endless focus on not just the anti-jihad movement but but really the free speech issue
00:26:23.700itself and i i think we should discuss this um you know i i don't i don't i don't need to revisit my
00:26:34.940you know interaction with with sargon of akkad uh but uh first off there is never
00:26:44.380going to be free speech truly free speech in any kind of community and politics is a community
00:26:54.600i mean politics is about power no question but it is also it is a polis it is about being together
00:27:03.920it's what politics is about and in this kind of situation there are always going to be limits
00:27:11.900there are social norms that one does not cross you know one has to be a truly you know autistic
00:27:19.380libertarian to say that oh we we have this videotape of um of of a child pornography but uh you know
00:27:30.160someone found it so he didn't actually engage in the non-aggression principle he's just publishing
00:27:36.320it and profiting by it and therefore that's fine i mean i'm sorry you you can make that argument on
00:27:44.280the basis of the non-aggression principle but i'm sorry that is just awful and wrong and no serious
00:27:50.740person or non non-autist is going to follow you down that path there are limits in that way and
00:27:58.520let's also be honest um a government that has sovereignty over a territory is going to look
00:28:07.340skeptically to say the least on people who are engaging in free speech that that that might
00:28:14.680undermine its ability to maintain power and also its legitimacy this is why the government attacks
00:28:23.680us uh and that that includes you and me and and tommy robinson is is that there is a we we are
00:28:31.260questioning a lot of its sources of legitimacy which are liberalism and you know multi-culti uh
00:28:38.940race raceless globo gay plex and so basically there's never going to be truly free speech in a
00:28:48.040community and we need to recognize that and the the the ironic thing about this recent free speech
00:28:55.700rally is that you know a none of them actually believed in free speech they were all talking
00:29:03.220about how much they disliked the quran and how it was this bad book that no one should read and it was
00:29:10.960just awful and so on and you know i i probably they probably people like sargon of akad and so on will
00:29:16.620say that oh we want to rationally convince everyone to embrace liberalism or what have you but it was
00:29:23.440funny that they were talking about speech they don't like and secondly there there it seems like the free
00:29:30.180speech debate is always about something else it's not like what we care about is not truly free speech
00:29:38.480uh what we care about is this major demographic question this major spiritual question and cultural
00:29:46.040question and that we we are trying to talk about it we are ultimately trying to change the social and
00:29:53.940political order and we are getting pushback but it's not it's not like people in government are like
00:30:03.200i'm an abstract anti-liberalist i don't approve a free speech in itself it's a bad concept no they don't
00:30:10.520want our speech is what they don't want and i'll just say it because i have the stones to say it
00:30:21.140if i were in charge would i be saying oh we let's just hash it out let's have totally open debate about
00:30:30.500every conceivable issue under the sun let's just let's bring out the transgendered feminist and just
00:30:37.440get in an endless debate with them and allow them to go to schools we can just we need to expose our
00:30:44.420children to this debate and so on of course not you know i mean obviously if we were in charge we would
00:30:52.340not be autistic libertarians and if you if you believe that some speech is good then you almost
00:30:59.980i mean maybe not quite logically but almost inherently believe that some speech can be really bad and evil
00:31:05.740if a book can change your life for the better or change the world for the better then then a bad
00:31:11.540book can do the same and we we just simply need to be real about this and i i guess there's something
00:31:19.620to be said for the argument that that you know that that's too intellectual you're gonna like you
00:31:27.800know your average normie likes things in black and white and so on but i don't know i i'm i'm kind
00:31:34.880tired of pretending you know that we're actually liberals or something like this and that all
00:31:42.240we're doing is fighting for liberalism we just want rights and free speech and stuff i mean no that that's
00:31:48.440that's part of the problem that that's the that is this that that is the intellectual legitimacy
00:31:54.040of the current system and the current system is destroying our civilization and race
00:32:01.840yeah i i i think you kind of preambled all of that with with the with the discussion of
00:32:11.640we're coming at this from the perspective of we're ambivalent about the outrage um that's been shown and
00:32:19.180certainly one of the reasons and one of the biggest reasons for ambivalence about this outrage
00:32:24.900is that we feel that it's been mispackaged as a kind of straightforward free speech issue
00:32:30.920um where tommy robinson wanted to speak about the muslims and he was shut up and he was gagged
00:32:37.600and that's what we're all outraged about and everything else um and to a certain extent it is too
00:32:46.060simplistic uh it ignores some of the legal pretext to what happened it ignores some of the more nuanced
00:32:55.840circumstances surrounding multiculturalism in britain and the west and it it just it kind of
00:33:04.340it's just too easy in a lot of ways um and it's one of those things where
00:33:11.360um people like alex jones and stephan molyneux to just package it that way makes it really sellable
00:33:20.260they think um but anyone who really objectively and carefully looks at the situation will see that
00:33:27.440to sell tommy robinson's free speech to the general public when he's been kind of thoroughly
00:33:33.800demonized among them for the best part of 10 years or more now it's just not going to happen
00:33:40.740you're not you're not going to sell it on that basis um especially given as i said the pretext
00:33:47.040here of the contempt of court conviction and everything that was going on around it i think
00:33:53.040that there were there there are different ways of trying to tease out some of the things that
00:33:58.260happened but going down the free speech route which as you say it's we're what frustrated me seeing
00:34:04.620a lot of the the simplistic packaging along those lines uh it echoes a lot of what you've said there
00:34:11.480i i felt that it was dishonest and ideologically dishonest um and it's hard for me to sell something
00:34:20.220i don't believe in um and then to see others kind of convincing themselves of it or convincing
00:34:28.460themselves that this was somehow still good propaganda was was even more frustrating uh
00:34:35.640which led to even more ambivalence which in some moments i was almost like uh anti-tommy robinson and
00:34:42.380then i was kind of more ambivalent again and then i was like well he was kind of a victim in this
00:34:46.520this issue um and then then i started questioning sort of the broader reasons outside of the kind of
00:34:54.320simplistic packaging free speech as to why i would be ambivalent about the outrage that was going on
00:34:58.780and i and i came up with with two more um reasons for my ambivalence the first was that um
00:35:06.460we seem to really be getting sucked into a pattern of bad news addiction where it's like this is this is
00:35:17.960what we're trying to fuel our movement with is is is the number of grievances we can accumulate
00:35:23.500and the number of horrific things that happen to white women or and these are all good
00:35:30.360propagandistic devices and they're all legitimate grievances and really legitimate reasons for rage
00:35:36.480and frustration but i'm not sure that we're digesting it in a healthy way and turning it into
00:35:44.640something really productive or whether we're in fact starting to fuel a kind of endless appetite
00:35:50.000for the same um so i i when i saw this kind of mass movement towards glutting ourselves
00:35:59.280on the misfortune of tommy robinson and everyone's willing to praise how brave he is but i came back
00:36:05.220and i said to myself tommy robinson was was with other people there why was he the one holding the
00:36:11.980phone why was he the one doing all of the recording it's like we're we kind of cheer these kind of
00:36:17.980solo heroes who kind of march off to prison you know jez turner was another one and alice and shabazz
00:36:24.200and lawrence burns and these people but
00:36:27.260systems don't really get changed by solo individuals kind of crashing and burning like
00:36:34.340this normally there's a more systematic or group effort where uh you know people just keep you know
00:36:40.760in in decent numbers keep throwing themselves at the system deliberately and systematically and
00:36:46.540with some semblance of coordination but there's this kind of like just random crashing and burning
00:36:55.640and the misfortune and the kind of endless i i would just like to see us start to pull back a little bit
00:37:01.940from that and and try and avoid slipping down into resentment and despair because whenever i kind of
00:37:08.860peek over the edge of this that's what i'm starting to see so i would like us to pull back a little from
00:37:13.820this and then the other reason for my ambivalence and it's related to what i've just said there is
00:37:18.860i think that that we've still got a little bit of a hangover from charlottesville
00:37:22.860i think we still have a little bit of of weariness and wearisomeness about legal entanglements
00:37:31.800and we're starting to think or certainly i am and i think that you feel the same way
00:37:36.920as i do is where we rather than kind of getting hopelessly caught up in an endless stream of arrests
00:37:44.700and legal oppression shouldn't we start thinking about how we can more intelligently approach some
00:37:51.280of these situations where we avoid senseless or low value arrests and and perhaps start strategically
00:37:59.440thinking how we can engage with with the legal system as it faces us as it confronts and oppresses us
00:38:05.740so those are my reasons whenever i kind of interrogate my own thinking on this matter as to why i was
00:38:12.520ambivalent um and that's not even taking into account where we where we stand in terms of uh
00:38:21.080what is or what should be the relationship between the alt-right and this counter jihad movement which is
00:38:26.540which is kind of a whole separate issue altogether this is more specifically relating to the tommy
00:38:32.580and i i i i agree with with everything you're saying i mean i um i've pulled back from activism um and i have
00:38:46.320have certainly i mean the the college tour thing was you know a it really set i mean and i i'm i'm not sure i'm not
00:38:57.000talking about the idea of it i think the idea of it remains good and we had you know some great events
00:39:01.420in there but um i'm the the precedent that was being set by the the basically the government these
00:39:09.820university officials and their police forces allowing just enough violence to make it a a a dangerous event
00:39:19.020and and but then not too much violence where they look bad um it's just this is where we are we were
00:39:27.060we were getting away with something something was working until it it it doesn't work anymore
00:39:33.040and going to texas a&m or auburn everything is safe you know there's some fisticuffs outside but
00:39:40.780everything's safe and there's a lot of energy in the air and you know i'm i'm able to speak i answer
00:39:46.000questions for an hour with the students and this is unequivocally a positive thing um but and and
00:39:53.800that's why that's why the the the colleges started preventing it first legally and then preventing it
00:40:01.200pragmatically you could say by by just making it a an unsafe you know just environment an overly
00:40:08.640intense environment it's not just a controversial speaker it is you know we are going to allow a riot
00:40:15.300to take place um so uh anyway this is where we are and we need to i i don't like all the hindsight
00:40:26.180talk about charlottesville and so on i mean there were people who were making these warnings but
00:40:32.980many of these people who are now in hindsight were supporting you know the the the 2017 activism and and
00:40:40.020so i while it was going on and then because they are just you know on the sidelines they're in the
00:40:44.920audience they can like oh see it was all wrong in the beginning we we we need to do things until
00:40:51.920they stop working but we also need to go with the trend and so it's a it's a difficult balance to
00:40:59.580strike and it's you know i don't quite know the answer i don't quite i think we can't we can
00:41:07.660obviously have conferences and events like that but what can we do in terms of a public gathering
00:41:14.720this is in question now and here i'm not talking about tommy robinson i'm more talking about
00:41:20.060the alt-right in in the united states and and so on what can what can we do and you know that this is
00:41:28.380what i'm struggling with to be honest um but uh yeah anyway we we can talk but before we
00:41:36.280you know tie a bow in this i i think we should talk a little bit about the the anti-jihad movement
00:41:42.240because the tommy is associated with that far far more than he's associated with the alt-right i mean
00:41:49.080he's probably labeled alt-right hero and in the press or something i don't doubt that but um the the he
00:41:56.260came to prominence and and so on as creating this group called the english defense league
00:42:04.620which was that name modeled on the anti-deflammation league no i believe it was modeled on the jewish
00:42:13.600defense league the jewish defense league okay so a similar organization and it was interesting
00:42:20.600because it was all based on this you know tremendous demographic change and cultural change that was
00:42:28.200occurring um in britain and uh so it it caught that that that energy that that that racial angst you
00:42:37.380could say uh but then and it also caught some of the energy of you know football hooligans and things
00:42:43.440like that uh but then it was translated into uh we are against islam just look at the quran look at
00:42:54.440these terrible verses that i can cite from the quran um there's a there's this global jihad that's coming
00:43:01.520in and and it just it kind of misses the point i mean pete those people raping young women are doing
00:43:09.600it because they're disgusting freaks like they're they're not reading the quran and then doing that
00:43:17.120it's as if to assume that if they had only read the bible or something else they wouldn't be you know
00:43:22.860criminals i mean they are who they are but most of them i probably know more about islam than the vast
00:43:30.900majority of these criminal muslims you know islam you know it's just it's it's getting at it it's
00:43:39.020misunderstanding the problem and then turning it into this again turning into a speech debate
00:43:45.140about what you know what do we think about the quran look at look at this thing that muhammad said oh my
00:43:50.660god and it's just always a misunderstanding and the the other fact of it not so much tommy tommy has been
00:43:57.940an avid israel supporter but the i was always highly critical of the anti-jihad movement uh because
00:44:05.460with with a few exceptions like sergey trivkovic or something um this movement which was going after
00:44:13.780islam was kind of like the i don't know what to say the the the the ugly stepchild of the neoconservatives
00:44:22.020and the american war machine and foreign policy so you know george w bush can go up there and say
00:44:28.100ah islam is a religion of peace we don't have any problem with muslims we we're just overthrowing
00:44:32.420these bad regimes or whatever uh but then the the anti-jihad movement can come in and in the you know
00:44:40.160and in the underbelly of the internet they can start they can just start talking about how evil
00:44:45.580islam is and they can they can trot out your you know based arab or based african who's given up
00:44:53.740islam and embrace christianity or secular humanism or whatever and they can just they can just basically
00:45:01.260indoctrinate you know prepare the ground for this for american foreign policy in the middle east
00:45:09.180by ginning up outrage um and and focusing their efforts entirely in the negative you know there
00:45:19.340there's nothing to anti-islam is is anti it's it's just endless discussion about you know how bad the
00:45:28.380quran is and then they they throw in some stuff here and there about you know how christianity is
00:45:35.180actually the foundation of human rights and liberalism and pluralism in fact and you know
00:45:41.420it's it's you know it's just i i don't know what to say it it it always just struck me as just
00:45:48.060fundamentally wrong and i got it i get why people are against islam i mean i too am against islam um i i
00:45:58.060think you know for for in a way different reasons i i think islam is an extremely powerful faith
00:46:03.900it is able to in a way ennoble these otherwise you know
00:46:11.420shit people and it kind of makes them better than they i i i have in a way the opposite
00:46:18.060take on islam from the anti-jihad movement it is a great religion in the sense that it improves the
00:46:25.020stock of people and gives them a a right and a wrong and it gives them a goal and it gives them
00:46:31.900energy and vitality and and a willingness to sacrifice so it makes them better in a way more
00:46:38.220heroic that is that is why it is bad and so in a way what we should be doing is totally demoralizing
00:46:47.420islam like if we could turn islam into what christianity is now that would be great because
00:46:55.420these all of these people who are now energized by by it would just go back to you know smoking
00:47:02.220hookah and just being lazy idiots uh so that is why islam is a problem it's it's it's it's not that
00:47:09.580it's like inherently immoral or that it has these bad verses or whatever again you can any of these
00:47:15.580people have they ever read the old testament um you can find all of that stuff um but it is basically a
00:47:23.660black flag it's a black flag raised against europe and against other things but but it's certainly
00:47:29.820raised against europe and so we we should go about you know demoralizing muslims uh and we should
00:47:37.260recognize you know this thing for what it is uh that is basically my take but all of this talk about how
00:47:46.540islam doesn't support human rights or whatever it's just it's it's totally missing the point islam
00:47:52.620is powerful precisely because it doesn't support human rights like it it that's why it is a motivating
00:48:00.540force it's not going to be secular and liberal um it is actually going to energize these people
00:48:10.140and um anyway i i just i the you know the anti-islam movement is like and i would mention this as as the
00:48:17.500end of my rant um i i've been very discouraged by the fact that people who who call themselves
00:48:28.380identitarian or who you know want to kind of orbit the identitarian sphere are also orbiting tommy
00:48:37.420robinson and so it's like oh you know and i'm i'm thinking here in particular generation identity and and
00:48:42.780martin zellner and so on and the kind of you know these you know girls that that circle them they're
00:48:50.700like oh tommy robinson he's he's one of us see we identitarians we're just ethno pluralist patriots
00:48:57.100who are defending our little place on the map our little plot our nation and uh and we we're also
00:49:05.180linking up with tommy robinson who's also an identitarian and we're gonna work this stuff is just
00:49:11.340we're just going back into all of this just like 2000s era nonsense uh tommy robinson i don't know
00:49:19.260what he actually believes i've never met him um i i don't know if he's he's not really one of us i mean
00:49:26.300he's just you know at least in his expressed ideology who knows what he he really is in his gut but in his
00:49:32.700he's a fighter no question but he's an expressed ideology he is uh he's a neocon he's a neocon
00:49:40.860i mean it's it's just like the the opposite of our version of the right and to get excited by him
00:49:50.380in itself like again i i get it look i defended you know i'll defend him now because he's under attack it's
00:49:55.660like all right we got your back on but but to get excited about him and what he represents is just
00:50:01.100so wrong it's it's just such a betrayal of what the alt-right or identitarianism actually is that i
00:50:09.260find it extremely frustrating i think what we're looking at here is just an issue an issue that has
00:50:18.780its origins and blurred lines and that's in much of western europe really kicking off in the 1960s and
00:50:27.660gaining in intensity by the early 2000s was a really growing dissatisfaction with multiculturalism
00:50:37.900uh the british national party just to stick with the british context was was certainly starting to
00:50:43.500enjoy unprecedented success and then almost out of nowhere emerged the english defense league um which
00:50:50.780kind of was this street based sort of almost single issue focused you know it was as you say it was
00:50:58.860producing the quran and the verses and everything and it seemed to kind of focus a lot of frustrations
00:51:07.020about multiculturalism because don't forget that muslim immigration to europe have been one of the most
00:51:14.060visibly catastrophic aspects of multiculturalism both in the form of islamist terrorism and in
00:51:20.540in the quite radical demographic change um but it kind of was able to narrow in and focus in a lot of
00:51:29.020these frustrations in a single direction which was which was against uh muslims against uh the islamic
00:51:36.220religion and by packaging itself in this kind of oh we're just against the religion uh we're not against
00:51:43.900these people for their uh genetic background we're not going to talk about the iq of pakistanis
00:51:49.740or the rate of inbreeding within these communities uh the rates of mental illness and psychosis
00:51:55.740um and attending behaviors uh and a tendency towards criminality that would be linked to that we're not
00:52:02.300going to talk about any of those things it's all it's all about what's in the quran um i i agree with a lot of
00:52:08.860what you said about uh islam as a religion i think there have been periods in the past where islam has been
00:52:18.220an energizing force and has been militarily on the march because of that and it's been expansionist
00:52:24.940the only qualifier i would put there is that it kind of in the end resulted in a kind of
00:52:31.820socio-cultural retardation where these muslim societies kind of went into
00:52:38.620their own little cocoons and just just stagnated and you know i i think when i read the statistics
00:52:47.420some time ago the number of books published within i think it was something like 25 muslim
00:52:53.660countries in the space of like 50 years didn't equivalent the number of books published in spain
00:52:59.580in one year um it was it was something that astonishing um and that it was so
00:53:07.900energy sapping um in the end certainly approaching modernity one of the things which did energize
00:53:15.100these islamic countries in the end um two things one was uh western uh foreign adventurism in the middle east
00:53:24.300uh but also i suppose russia and afghanistan um in in the late 1970s uh concluding in the 80s um but also
00:53:35.020i think uh we we cannot divest the modern islamic problem from the fact that its main engine is
00:53:45.580basically multiculturalism and the fact that we've imported islam en masse uh into the west um if islam stayed in
00:53:54.460those lands where it has been historically predominant it wouldn't be an issue would
00:53:58.220have carried on in its quasi-retarded state um those societies would have remained relatively
00:54:05.740technologically and culturally primitive certainly scientifically and we could more or less ignore
00:54:11.820them or do business with them uh as as as our need for their natural resources demanded but the fact
00:54:18.940is that in the in post-modernity foreign policy and domestic policy there's no real differentiation
00:54:26.540between the two anymore i've said it previously that your foreign policy with pakistan
00:54:33.180changes radically whenever you have whole cities full of pakistanis uh within your own borders it just
00:54:39.660changes fundamentally because you have a whole different set of concerns and that's why
00:54:43.980multicultural multiculturalism destroyed the foreign policy that was that we saw historically it doesn't
00:54:50.620exist anymore and that's what we're dealing with um and that's why that was another contributing
00:54:57.820factor as to why we have this issue of blurred lines so the edl and the whole counter jihad movement
00:55:03.420is able to kind of hijack tensions about multiculturalism and focus them in a specific area um
00:55:09.900um and it it kind of produced this whole clash of civilizations narrative which you alluded to
00:55:16.700um the alt-right of course definitely has a more nuanced take on the whole idea of a clash of civilizations
00:55:23.260um but you will find some drift from all writers to counter jihadist activism because they can kind of
00:55:31.900get on board with with an anti-islamic program to the extent that it will involve objecting to
00:55:39.180to muslim expansion and that is undeniably on some levels political and demographic and these are
00:55:47.340concerns uh to alt-righters um but there are obviously significant aspects which which we we have to
00:55:55.420really reject out of hand um we we reject any kind of civic or quasi-cultural uh visions or versions of
00:56:03.340nationalism um which which are essentially what counter jihad movements uh offer in opposition
00:56:09.660to muslim expansion and because of that we reject the whole idea as you mentioned based africans based
00:56:15.500sikhs or um you know this idea that uh you've got these converts or apostates from uh islam who've seen
00:56:26.300the light and they're now christians or they're warning about islam or whatever or this idea that that
00:56:32.060britain should be defined as a christian country uh not white christian not uh white british um or
00:56:40.540anything else but just just christian um so you know as long as we we can have six million normally
00:56:47.820christian somalis and that's fine because because they're christian and somehow adherence to the or
00:56:53.500or quasi-adherence to the christian faith um that that that qualifies them as as suitable uh for
00:57:00.460citizenship uh within britain um and then even more importantly as you said you know tommy robinson is
00:57:06.380essentially a neocon the alt-right questions key aspects of of counter jihad ideology the most important
00:57:14.140being foreign policy we would tend to oppose outright any kind of military adventurism in the middle east
00:57:20.380and attached to that we certainly oppose any kind of extravagant support for the state of israel
00:57:25.660just to be you won't clear um i oppose the american foreign policy that is you know attempting to bring
00:57:34.220democracy and and and just allow people to to die to transform these societies into secular liberalism
00:57:42.540however foreign adventurism i wish that the west what the white race were so badass that we would
00:57:50.540actually take part in foreign adventurism that actually sounds awesome uh intergalactic adventurism
00:57:57.820is probably what will be next i am in full support of that um i i do think we need to define terms um i i am
00:58:05.980not in support of engaging in in war for israel's benefit um i am not in support of engaging in war
00:58:16.940for the the cause of humanitarianism or anything like that but i i think we would be untrue to ourselves
00:58:23.260if we uh denounced foreign adventurism yeah i look in the in the long term i think we should say this i'm
00:58:31.260just so over the kind of my being a libertarian and talking like this i i just i don't know it's
00:58:37.980it's like a a weight has been lifted i i i think we need to just get away from pretending that we're not
00:58:44.780who we are yeah let's let's have a real war for oil you know we want your oil we're just going to go and take
00:58:53.420it um right you know without any of the kind of let's spread democracy crap let's just fill all that in
00:58:59.660in the dustbin um but yeah yeah i i get what you're coming from um but this is but we we object
00:59:06.620to the kind of flavor and nuance and hypocrisy of kind of counter jihad foreign policy um and and
00:59:15.020it's and it's pretensions and and posturing and for its part we have to we have to say that counter
00:59:20.620jihad we would strain to condemn us uh racism and nazis or whatever kind of keywords they want to
00:59:27.260throw at us i know that tommy robinson uh through everyone at charlottesville under the bus and says
00:59:32.780if these nazis were walking through my town i would be out protesting against them too and they do that
00:59:39.020in some cases they do it because the end of the counter jihad individual in question is jewish
00:59:43.660uh and in other instances is because i think they genuinely believe this will will give them a bit of
00:59:48.780a pass with with the media and some of their peers and certainly tommy robinson by steering clear of
00:59:53.500the jewish issue and the race question has got media time uh in the uk piers morgan's had him had
00:59:59.900him on for interviews and he does get interviews he does get he does get air time that someone like
01:00:05.900jez turner um or yourself just just wouldn't do i think that for a while in in the united states the
01:00:13.260media tried to see if you would soften up um and be a kind of media figure like tommy robinson
01:00:21.740someone that could be kind of pulled out to be booed at occasionally um but it it didn't seem to
01:00:29.260work so in the end they kind of they kind of readjusted tactics and then uh charlottesville
01:00:33.900happened and we we've kind of reassumed that place of the media has decided that we really aren't
01:00:41.340uh able to be incorporated within their kind of superstructure um and having said that you can see that
01:00:49.180yes you know tommy robinson is against the establishment he's he's very clearly in opposition
01:00:54.140to it they are opposed to him but at the same time the media and politics does seem to leave some space
01:01:02.060for that within the bounds of discussion not i'm not going to say acceptable discussion but discussion
01:01:09.820um there are corners and places where the things that tommy robinson wants to say can be said and
01:01:18.540there are signs that that is passable for example he's never been convicted of hate speech to my
01:01:26.060knowledge um whereas people who have said things of a racial nature or who have said things uh about a
01:01:34.700clash of civilization with jews jewish influence have been given very stiff sentences in prison jez turner
01:01:43.340being just the latest um so it's talk about jez turner um uh real quick i i have actually met him
01:01:54.460i think two times or so when i was when i was allowed in the united kingdom um yeah i've i've met
01:02:00.700i've met jess too and stayed in touch with him and uh i've i've watched this whole episode on ravel
01:02:08.940where he gave a speech and in that speech he urged literally word for word he what he said was we
01:02:16.540should take back control from jews or you know our country's under jewish control and we need to take
01:02:23.900take it back and this was complained about by jews who were kind of observing this whole thing and
01:02:33.020reported it to police and the police passed it on to the prosecution service the crime prosecution
01:02:38.220service who said that they said that hate crimes can only be perpetrated really against a an individual
01:02:46.220so he um he was talking about jews so that's kind of vague and you cannot present yourself individually
01:02:57.020as a jewish person as a victim of that particular hate crime we cannot convict him of uh of racially
01:03:04.860abusing you for example um so a very senior prosecutor reviewed the case and decided that there would be no
01:03:11.980no prosecution at that point the campaign against anti-semitism run by a guy called gideon falter
01:03:19.580stepped in and demanded to be able to meet with the director of prosecutions so the highest prosecutor
01:03:28.620in britain basically and these jews who lack all influence were able to obtain this meeting and uh
01:03:35.660they were able to persuade this uh individual to pass the case to yet another um senior prosecutor and
01:03:45.500on this occasion the decision was taken to prosecute jez turner so jez turner found himself then going on
01:03:51.260trial uh despite the first senior prosecutor saying that there really was no legal grounds for such a
01:03:57.100trial to take place jez turner was asked did he still believe the things that he expressed in the uh
01:04:06.140in the speech he said that yes i do i think that the jews are quite harmful to british society uh he was
01:04:12.460completely unapologetic and he was pretty much summarily convicted of hate speech and sentenced to one
01:04:19.740year in prison so you know that's a roughly equivalent um term to what tommy robinson will serve and
01:04:29.020they've started those sentences at roughly the same time um but all the free speech discussion is
01:04:36.060focusing on tommy robinson's conviction is really all about contempt of court whereas the real free
01:04:43.340speech issue in terms of being able to stand up and give a speech and talk about things that some
01:04:49.260people don't like to hear jez turner's just kind of been forgotten about already so again we really
01:04:57.820need to start thinking about these things more intensively and we need to probably discuss them
01:05:04.060more with each other um rather than kind of just following waves of emotion um we could probably do
01:05:14.860with a bit more direction than that uh if we're to get the best out of our misfortunes uh and if we
01:05:22.060really want to avoid them rather than kind of glut ourselves on them as we sometimes seem to be doing
01:05:30.380question uh i think that is a good note to end on