Ezra Levant's Battleground: Tommy Robinson UPDATE & more (July 12 2018)
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
163.1231
Summary
Ezra Levant talks about Tommy Robinson's new court date, NATO hearings in Latvia, Justin Trudeau's awkward kiss on the wife of the Belgian Prime Minister, Donald Trump's visit to the UK, and much, much more!
Transcript
00:00:00.240
It's July 12th, I'm Ezra Levant and you're watching Battleground.
00:00:11.240
Hello my friends and a few foes who join in every day at 12 noon Eastern Time.
00:00:15.640
I talk for an hour off the cuff, we have some videos, we play, we show some websites.
00:00:21.000
But the main feature of our daily chit chat at 12 noon Eastern Time, 5pm in London, England,
00:00:26.280
is the live chat. As you can see to the right of the screen are comments that anyone can make.
00:00:33.540
And YouTube's invented something called Super Chat, where for a couple of pounds, a couple of dollars,
00:00:39.180
a few pesos, you can have your comments appended to the top and put in bright highlight for everyone to see.
00:00:46.920
And I keep an eye out in the corner of my eye for those and I like to read those.
00:00:51.640
I've got some news about Tommy Robinson that I'm going to share, but we've got 60 people watching right now.
00:00:59.840
I'm going to wait a couple of minutes till the numbers get up and I'll share those with you.
00:01:04.980
We have a few things I want to cover today in addition to my Tommy news.
00:01:08.360
The NATO hearings in Latvia, Donald Trump very ferocious demanding that countries in NATO spend at least 2% of their GDP on the military.
00:01:27.200
Canada spends 1.3%. That's falling to 1.2% this year.
00:01:31.700
I want to show you Justin Trudeau's attempt to bluster his way through that.
00:01:40.460
Speaking of bluster, I'll show you an embarrassing moment of how Justin Trudeau greeted the Belgian prime minister.
00:01:53.580
He bypassed the Belgian PM and went in for a kiss on the wife.
00:01:57.760
And that's, you could say, well, that's just a French thing, the air kisses, the cheek kisses.
00:02:02.740
But, yeah, if you're in the middle of a groping scandal, maybe that's not what you do.
00:02:18.880
And a poll showed that, actually, more Brits support him than oppose him.
00:02:26.860
It's just the media party that's all freaked out about it.
00:02:29.960
All right, we've got 125 folks online, so let me tell you some news.
00:02:34.060
This morning I spoke to several members of Tommy's family as well as to Tommy's lawyers.
00:02:39.020
And I have three pieces of news to share with you.
00:02:47.320
The first piece of news, and I just want to make sure I'm spelling everything right,
00:02:50.680
because there's a name I want to share with you.
00:02:54.700
As you may know, a couple weeks ago, an outrage happened.
00:02:59.800
The government delayed Tommy's court date for the legal appeal by two weeks.
00:03:06.100
Tommy was supposed to have his appeal on the 10th of July, as in two days ago.
00:03:14.020
And the government said, no, no, no, we need more time, as if two months wasn't long enough.
00:03:18.720
So they kicked the can down the road two weeks, July 24th.
00:03:25.440
The judge was a powerful judge, Justice Brian Levson,
00:03:30.000
the head of all the criminal courts in the United Kingdom, the top dog.
00:03:36.100
For criminal justice in the UK, he was going to hear the matter.
00:03:45.020
Frustrating that it was delayed two weeks, but there it is.
00:03:48.460
So today I spoke with a family, and I have unbelievable news.
00:03:54.440
The court date has been moved, but it's not being pushed further into the future.
00:04:01.180
The new court date is July 18th, less than a week from today.
00:04:09.600
Still at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on the Strand.
00:04:15.580
So it's coming almost a week earlier, and they've changed up the judges.
00:04:20.960
And this, this is what I wanted to make sure I got this exactly right,
00:04:43.040
and he is the Lord Chief Justice for England and Wales.
00:04:48.120
He is the top judge in the entire United Kingdom.
00:04:53.960
Justice Brian Levson, who I told you about before,
00:04:57.300
he's the top criminal judge, which I thought was pretty impressive.
00:05:04.380
he is the Lord Chief Justice for England and Wales.
00:05:07.780
This is like, if this were in the United States,
00:05:13.220
if the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court himself,
00:05:18.580
with two other judges beneath him, were to hear Tommy's case,
00:05:24.620
There is no more senior judge in the entire United Kingdom.
00:05:34.260
Because Tommy's case is the most important case in the UK
00:05:39.780
in terms of freedom of speech and Tommy's rights
00:05:45.800
I think the manner in which Tommy was convicted
00:06:05.320
We don't have something called the Lord Chief Justice.
00:06:12.440
That is a position that goes back almost 800 years.
00:06:32.940
is now going to be presiding over a three-judge panel
00:07:04.920
But he's not the boss of all the other judges, right?
00:07:12.440
In even some ways that the Supreme Court Justice,
00:07:25.080
there is no higher office in the United Kingdom.
00:07:29.920
Now, the third piece of news I have is more personal.
00:07:49.440
and I received two contacts from the family this morning,
00:08:30.980
Obviously, they either don't cover important news,
00:08:49.700
It's one thing to have a heavy opinion that's negative.
00:09:10.200
Tommy's worried that even if he has a win in court,
00:09:16.600
defeat will be snatched from the jaws of victory
00:10:06.280
I'm familiar with contempt of court law in the UK.
00:10:56.660
we've got the details of the name of the judge,
00:11:31.940
I expect that I will probably do 10 video updates
00:11:41.040
I will seek permission to actually tweet from the courtroom.
00:11:45.720
Obviously, I'm not going to be talking in the courtroom on video.
00:12:00.200
If you want to help me get over there, please do.
00:12:03.360
Obviously, I'm not going to take money from Tommy's legal offense,
00:12:08.420
Listen, if you don't want to chip in, you don't have to.
00:12:17.040
think the delay was so Tommy Robinson would miss President Trump's visit?
00:12:33.260
It's a stitch-up to send him from a safe prison in HMP Hull
00:12:37.740
to a dangerous prison dominated by Muslim criminal gangs, HMP Onley.
00:12:51.080
which is what they knew Tommy would do to protect his life.
00:12:55.580
And why did they change the date the first time?
00:13:00.600
I don't believe that the Attorney General of the United Kingdom,
00:13:03.860
who has more lawyers at his disposal than any other person in all of Europe,
00:13:08.180
I just do not believe that he needed, you know,
00:13:16.520
And I have no doubt that there's political reason for that,
00:13:19.000
partly because Tommy has a demonstration this Saturday in London
00:13:26.400
And if you disagree with that, if you've got speculation,
00:13:32.540
Are you telling me that the Attorney General of the United Kingdom,
00:13:36.600
who has more lawyers at his disposal than any other man in Europe,
00:13:45.920
Maybe he couldn't get the transcript from the trial or something?
00:13:53.200
with an unlimited legal budget and unlimited lawyers,
00:13:56.820
unlimited expertise, unlimited access to documents?
00:14:01.320
that they're not ready for an appeal two months after the conviction?
00:14:04.860
I'm sorry, I was born at night, but not last night.
00:14:13.800
John Zeeland, Ezra, are you going to have security?
00:14:18.560
I don't think I need security to be at the court,
00:14:20.600
the Royal Courts of Justice in the United Kingdom.
00:14:28.880
and even if I were well enough known in the UK to be in jeopardy,
00:14:31.560
I do not think I would be in jeopardy at that site.
00:15:12.360
And Theresa May had the foreign secretary advise
00:15:24.400
he wasn't allowed to bring his Dutch diplomatic security.
00:15:26.820
So, effectively, he's banned from coming to the rally.
00:15:44.280
I should remind you that the king of Saudi Arabia
00:16:00.780
and we certainly will not provide you security.
00:16:20.120
Ezra, don't get arrested for contempt of court.
00:16:23.140
That's why I said I'm going to check with the court
00:16:26.640
You don't want to be tweeting in the courthouse