Tommy Robinson and the Politics of Guess Work

The story of the week has been the release of Tommy Robinson, or as those with no respect for preferred pronouns call him, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. As a casual observer, I, like everyone, assumed that there was some legal basis to his being imprisoned.

I mean, in Merrye Olde England it is surely not possible to assign a barrister, give them ten minutes to acquaint themselves with their client and the facts, then have a trial lasting four minutes, in which the said barrister, despite not knowing what the charges were, pleads guilty on behalf his client and then goes straight to mitigation. This wasn’t a magistrates court dealing with a parking ticket, or a scene from to Kill a Mockingbird. Yet apparently that was what happened.

To quote the appeal court

“The judge informed the appellant that he was going to pursue proceedings for contempt of court and would try to find him a lawyer to represent him later that day. He adjourned at 11.45. Proceedings resumed at 12.18. Over the next four minutes the judge identified for the benefit of counsel, the appellant having been formally identified, his concerns about the appellant’s conduct.” But thankfully, two or three days later, after the reporting restrictions had been lifted, we had the media to fill in the details. And thank goodness that they did.

And thankfully we were assured that this was all quite normal and nothing to worry about. Not only were experts rolled out across all media to fill in the details of what might have happened (had this been a properly conducted legal hearing), but we got to find out all kinds of other things too.

But more important than learning the #facts of the case, we could sit a deck chair in the backyard and spectate, as endless hobby-horses were dragged out and flogged for the amusement of a dwindling media audience. Tommy was either a hero akin to Robin Hood or literally Hitler.

The crux of the issue was free speech or it wasn’t.

It was about climate change — OK I made that one up, since as we know climate change is now a feminist issue, and therefore nothing to do with the alleged rape of thousands of girls and boys. Of course what wasn’t addressed was anything touching on what might loosely be described as adult. By which I mean the issue of grooming is to say the least, somewhat more complex and difficult to address than gangs of swarthy men descending to carry off virgins, in the manner of the Arab slavers of yore.

But then it is not that long ago that to mention the Arab slavers of yore would have caused out-rage among many of the same people whose reflex whenever grooming is merely whispered, is to invoke the dark Lord of derailment, Jimmy Saville. No, the one thing all sides agree about is, that this matter must not deal with the complexities of the issue — and one must never mention the Muslim girls and boys mixed up in all of this — Sikhs, white girls, the odd black here or mixed race there, but not Muslims: who tend to disappear or be shamed into silence.

Just boil everything down to whether or not you can or can’t call someone a racist. And of course Tommy is a racist.

We know this because he was protesting, when to even speak of the issue, proved you were a racist.

Countless editorials in such places as the Guardian and the BBC said so.

Numerous and various politicians echoed this. This whole myth of #asian #rape #gangs was nothing more than a talking point for the BNP. Besides back then it was New Labour New Britain, and we had more important things to concern ourselves with: like making the disabled stand on chairs to see if they really were incontinent and not simply taking welfare from immigrants. It was as if Channel 4 had never made the film Rita, Sue and Bob Too. Which does deal with many of the issues thrown up by the grooming scandal; albeit in a light-hearted manner. You know, little things like teenage sexuality, rebelliousness, class — that sort of nonsense… the bad kind issue… the kind that doesn’t get you booked onto talk shows, for yet another pointless Punch and Judy show about who is and who isn’t a racist for daring to talk honestly about what was, and is, going on in places like Rotherham.

Never mind that Rotherham council was found to be so dysfunctional that it had to be effectively taken over by the Home Office.

No, don’t look there….

Don’t look anywhere…. you racist…. So back to the present. Perhaps the least surprising reaction to judgement by the Court of Appeal is the lack of anyone taking a deep breath, and pausing to reflect upon the implications of a barrister being assigned a client, having ten minutes to familiarize themselves with the case, before pleading guilty to an unspecified charge during a hearing lasting four minutes, in which the judge was also apparently the chief witness and the evidence was neither presented or reviewed.

(Before you say, I am well aware that the Appeal Court does not entirely condemn Judge Marson’s handling of the affair. Clearly there was an issue that had to be dealt with in regard to the filming of defendants and witnesses entering the court, and clearly there was an issue with regard to the third trial. The appeal judgement acknowledges all of this.) Yes, I know I have mentioned the brevity of proceedings before. And I shall no doubt say it again, since it is the most shocking aspect of this case. And one that cannot be disputed.

Unlike the bits and pieces floating around the issue, like whether or not Tommy Robinson was forced to live on tuna, or the prison mosque was opposite his cell leading to poop being dropped through his window five times a day, or that somehow freedom of speech is under threat in Merrye Olde England because we opted not to go down the OJ Simpson path by having cameras in court-room. My personal favourite myth is that Tommy was the first to highlight the issue of #muslim #rape #gangs.

Which is about as true as Alex Jones’ claim of swinging the Brexit vote, or indeed that Brexit didn’t also have Lexit, with the connected falsity that somehow the Labour can have the nationalised railways of Lexit without leaving the EU. Anyone who has watched Tommy’s address to the Oxford Union is well aware of his version of events. And well aware of what he claims to have done and the timescale in which he claims to have done them. And from there work out that this was an issue before any of that. The difference being that he wouldn’t shut up when the usual suspects went after him, unlike many, for instance Anne Cryer, who did back down. Oh I know, I know, he is a football hooligan, and a fraudster, and for some reason his being briefly a member of the BNP is suddenly of great importance.

This latter point, appears particularly precious to those who most ardently trumpeted the righteousness of the original verdict, and whose only regret seems to be that the sentence was not longer….

Or possibly the hearing shorter…

The shadow debate on Twitter, that has been running at thousands of tweets a day since he was gaoled but curiously never trends, has made this perfectly clear. However, what those denying Tommy Robinson the oxygen of publicity, by endlessly tweeting about him and trolling his supporters, don’t address is, can it really be right for a Crown Court to act in the manner they did? Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that the journalists who attended the #trial should have defended the proceedings. It is somewhat of a cheap shot, but does anyone really believe journalists competent? Or even curious? Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens at the retrial. Obviously one question will be, how it is possible to have a fair trial given the level of prejudicial reporting, and the sheer amount of mis-information. Another will be what he will be charged with, given the comments of the appeal judges with regard to the content of the Facebook recording. Clearly they considered the reason for his being there of a questionable nature, which perhaps it is… but would that be sufficient to press new charges? Given that it did play a role in the events at Canterbury.

We shall see. Still it has given people something to talk about — apart from the weather — which has been rainy since St Swithins day… since you ask….