Ezra Levant reports from London’s Royal Courts of Justice on May 20th, where Tommy Robinson (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) secured early release after purging contempt for sharing a viral documentary (Silenced, 160M+ views) exposing suppressed topics like mass immigration and terrorism. Despite no remorse, his 18-month sentence—served in solitary at HMP Woodhill—was cut short, sparking outrage over perceived two-tier justice: 24 violent inmates freed to accommodate him while police target activists like Lucy Connolly (31 months for a tweet) and Robinson’s own "trumped-up" Terrorism Act charge. Levant warns of eroding free speech, comparing UK crackdowns to authoritarian regimes, as public distrust fuels Reform UK’s rise amid Conservative decline, exposing systemic bias against dissent on controversial issues. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, Tommy Robinson purges his contempt of court and he'll be let out of prison this week.
It's May 20th and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
As you can see by those double-decker buses speeding by me, I'm back in London, England.
I came because this morning at the first instance in the Royal Courts of Justice, there was a hearing by Tommy Robinson to purge his contempt of court.
That's the legal term for when you say to a judge, Judge, I'm sorry I want to come back in conformity with the law.
I don't want to be a dissident or defiant anymore.
If I follow the rules, will you let me out of prison?
And the judge obviously has to be persuaded that you really mean it.
Here, I'll tell you the story of how it went.
Hi, everybody.
Ezra Levant here outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, England.
What a gorgeous, unseasonably warm spring day.
Moments ago, inside that building in courtroom 15, Justice Jeremy Johnson ruled that Tommy Robinson can go free.
He's been in prison for seven months in solitary confinement in a maximum security facility full of murderers and terrorists called His Majesty's Prison Wood Hill.
Not just that, but to keep him in solitary confinement, the prison has released 24 other violent prisoners so that Tommy can have a wing to himself because the prison is so chaotic and so out of control that the prison governor doesn't control it.
The prison gangs do.
So they literally opened up 24 cells, let those prisoners go just to hold Tommy.
Talk about a bizarre justice system.
Tommy was set to serve several more months in prison, but he purged his contempt is what they call it in the law, by taking down the video finally in the last few days.
That's what the judge said who sentenced him some seven months ago.
Part of the sentence was punitive.
That is to punish Tommy for publishing the video, but part of it was to force or coerce Tommy to actually take the video down.
So by doing that, Tommy shortens his sentence by several months.
He'll be released later this week, unless the prison has some last-minute spasm of authoritarianism, which can't be ruled out, given their sadistic governor, Nicola Marfley.
It was an interesting hearing.
Tommy's lawyer made the case that Tommy did everything he could to take down copies of the video, deleting it from his own account, writing to allies who had posted it.
What was interesting is there were several accounts, including in Denmark, that simply refused to take it down, saying that they would never comply with a judge's order to censor.
And the judge heard that and saw that Tommy tried to get them to take it down and accepted that Tommy did everything he could.
It's interesting to me that people around the world published that video, including in France, the court was told.
Besides Tommy's lawyer making the case that Tommy had purged his contempt, there was a lawyer here for the Solicitor General, that is for the government, of Kier Starmer.
Realize how censorious this government is.
Every single day, according to the Times of London, 30 people in the UK are arrested every day for a social media hurt feelings crime.
30 per day.
That is more than are arrested for the same thing in Russia.
Now, I'm not saying that the UK is an authoritarian regime in some of the ways that Russia is, but my God, it's going in that direction, wouldn't you say?
Tommy joined today's proceedings by a video link from the prison, and he'll soon be released.
What's astonishing is that he was in prison at all.
If I'm not mistaken, there has been no other journalist who has served time in prison for contempt of court in nearly 100 years, let alone spending seven months in solitary confinement.
I think, again, that goes to Tommy's status as an enemy of the state.
I'm worried that Tommy simply cannot get a fair hearing in the United Kingdom.
He has become a pariah.
And there's such peer pressure, even amongst the judges, to put him in prison.
Let me give you an example.
Although Tommy will be getting a number of days, this is another charge.
Now, that sounds terrifying.
It sounds like he's done anus, doesn't it?
Well, no.
In fact, all he did was when he was picked up by police without warrant and held under the Terrorism Act, that's an astonishing law.
It's like their version of the Patriot Act over here.
They can arrest anyone coming or going from the country and hold them for up to six hours and question them.
And you do not have the right to remain silent to believe it.
So they arrested Tommy on no charges, on no warrant, and they asked him questions about his politics and his journalism for six hours.
And he answered them as you must.
But they asked him for the passcode on his phone.
Now, of course, as you know, if you've got a smartphone, which most of us do, your phone doesn't just have phone numbers, it has your emails, it has your documents, it has your photos, it has voice and video recordings, it's got everything.
And for the police to say, give us the passkey to your phone without a search warrant or any probable cause simply offended Tommy's dignity as a Brit, the rule of law, the privacy that people in this country ought to have.
So he declines.
Now, I think the police cracked his password anyways, but nonetheless, they are charging him under the Terrorism Act for the offense of not giving him their passcode.
Of course, they are.
They throw everything at this guy.
It's like Lavrentiy Beria, the Soviet secret policeman who said to Stalin, Show me the man and I'll find you, or find me the man and I'll show you the crime.
As in, I'll find something on anybody.
Just tell me who.
That's Tommy Robinson.
So although he's out of prison in the next few days now, he I don't know what will happen to him if he's prosecuted again under the Terrorism Act.
The hearing was about half an hour and it was a small attendance.
I don't think a lot of people knew about it in advance.
There were two other journalists in the room besides myself.
The public gallery only had a half a dozen people in it, including close friends of Tommy.
I think he wanted it low-key for some reason.
I don't know, but I heard about it and I live tweeted it.
You can follow my live tweets on the subject at TommyReports.com.
And I feel it's important for me to be here for all these hearings to document them.
I try and type as fast as I can.
I don't get everything.
It's not quite stenography, but I try and reflect what it was like in the courtroom.
Besides Tommy's lawyer, there was a lawyer for the Solicitor General, the office of the cabinet minister in the Starmer government.
And he didn't particularly oppose Tommy's release.
I think he realized that Tommy Robinson had done everything he could to get the film down.
But it was astonishing to me that the Solicitor General of the UK sent a lawyer, an expensive private practice lawyer, into court.
And the Solicitor General did all sorts of online research about this video, too.
I mean, talk about misplaced law enforcement priorities.
This country is awash in crimes, both petty and serious.
London itself has got to be one of the most violent cities, certainly in the United Kingdom, whether it's knife crime or just property crime, and yet they're going after Tommy Robinson.
It shows you the political nature of the war against him.
But he will be let out.
I just don't know if he can ever expect a fair hearing in this country.
I just, I mean, the title of Tommy's autobiography is Enemy in the State, and I really think he has become that.
But other things have changed.
Tommy Robinson is now a household name around the world.
That video that was banned, and now it's taken down, well, before it was deleted, it had over 160 million views.
That's more than double the population of the United Kingdom.
The issues that Tommy Robinson would shine a light on, mass immigration, Islamification, terrorism, rape gangs, these are things that you weren't supposed to talk about.
And the establishment sort of had a pact of silence, a cone of silence over them.
Well, now, everyone's talking about it.
Even Keir Starmer, the labor government, is now talking tough about reducing immigration, requiring English from immigration.
I don't believe Keir Starmer, but Tommy Robinson was an early voice when everyone else was telling him to shut up.
That's sort of how it is in politics, isn't it?
A prophet is not recognized in his own time.
Now even Nigel Farage is talking about mass deportations.
It's almost like they're trying to catch up to where Tommy Robinson himself was.
I think that's the difficult thing about being the leading edge, is you have the toughest fight and you never get any respect.
I'm going to continue covering Tommy Robinson because I have a personal friendship with him, but also because I see his important place in the battle of ideas in this country.
And I see how the war against him exposes flaws in the United Kingdom's own policing, prosecutions, certainly the prison system, the politics, the media.
Tommy Robinson forces things to happen.
He's a disruptor in his own way.
And even the way he was punished, it turned him into a kind of martyr.
I'm not sure if the state knew what they were doing by coming down on him so hard because I think it only increased the size of his following.
I understand that they're going to have a big public rally later this year when Tommy is out, a free speech rally.
It'll be interesting to see how that goes and if the government tries something to arrest him before that rally.
They did that the last time they arrested him.
They arrested him just a day before one of his big rallies.
It couldn't be clearer that this is political.
Every time I come to the United Kingdom, I myself, by the way, am slightly surprised that I'm not detained under that same terrorism act and asked questions because I know five other people who have been detained under that rule, under that terrorism act.
Anyways, those are my thoughts from being outside the courthouse.
There's just one more thing I want to say.
And it was interesting.
The judge went through the guidelines, sort of the list of the rules for someone purging their contempt.
Did you take all steps to remedy the contempt?
Did you agree not to do it again?
I mean, the judge said that Tommy Robinson had promised that if he disagrees with the court ruling in the future, he'll appeal it.
But there was one thing the judge noted, that Tommy Robinson did not show remorse or contrition.
He did not say he regretted doing what he did.
He said he'll change his ways in the future, but he doesn't regret doing what he did.
Now, that was not reason enough to be kept in prison, said the judge.
But that's the nature of Tommy Robinson.
There's a principled stubbornness to him.
Some people might call it irrational.
Some people might call it foolish.
But it's that nature, that essence of him that has made him so effective.
I think most people would have deleted their video months ago to get out of prison much sooner.
But Tommy Robinson endured the punishment and his video racked up 100 million extra views.
The law doesn't know what to do with principled conscientious objectors.
I spoke to another journalist today and I said, you know what?
It might be a bit disproportionate, but there is something about Tommy Robinson that's similar to what Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela had within them.
A willingness to suffer unfair laws and to personally take on physical and mental pain and suffering in the service of a larger goal.
Now, I'm not comparing the scope or the scale of Tommy Robinson to Nelson Mandela or, you know, Mahatma McGandy.
I'm not.
But I'm saying that that trait of civil disobedience, that willingness to sacrifice oneself, knowing that in the long term, the battle could be won, and acting as a non-violent symbol for a movement.
That's one of my favorite things about Tommy.
I like the man as a friend.
And I also feel like the issues he's fighting in the UK today are the issues that we're going to fight in Canada and other places around the world.
Well, those are my thoughts on the steps of the Royal Courts of Justice.
I think Tommy should be out of jail in the next few days.
I'm going to stick around London and try to find out when he's being released.
And through the family, I've spoken to them, and I believe I'll be able to interview him when he's out of prison.
I'll have a one-on-one conversation privately with him, but I'll also catch up with him for his public thoughts and for the details of his prison that I was forbidden to find out because I myself was banned from visiting him by the sadistic governor Nicola Marthley.
Well, that's my report for the day.
Feel free to follow all of our reports on Tommy's prevails at TommyReports.m.
Well, Tommy is still in prison tonight.
He will be let out later this week.
I'm going to stick around London for a couple of days and do other work here.
I can still do my Canadian work from the streets of London.
I just won't be in the field.
I'll do monologues on my phone.
But the reason I want to stay out here is because I want to be there when Tommy is released in a couple of days.
I want to interview him.
I want to see how he's doing.
I haven't been able to talk to him because the prison has barred me from visiting him.
Anyways, it was exciting to be back in London and to be surrounded by a growing number of citizen journalists.
Resisting Submission00:08:31
Some of them I spoke to on the street right outside the court.
And I actually appeared on GB News, one of my favorite mainstream media outlets here.
Take a look at a smattering of those.
So we're outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London with Esla Levant, who's just flown in from Canada to report on what just took place in court where Tom Robinson has had his contempt of court conviction purged.
So you was in the reporting on it.
Tell me what you saw and how it made you feel.
Sure.
Well, relief that Tommy will be out of prison, he has been treated in an abusive manner by a sadistic prison governor.
who has taken every advantage to turn the screws on him to in large and small ways.
Let me give you one example.
Tommy has telephone privileges beyond what a normal prisoner gets because remember Tommy was convicted of no crime.
But the judge said you're only allowed to use the phone during the day.
Well Tommy's teenage kids are at school during the day.
So what use is it if you can make a phone call but can't talk to your family?
They would listen in on the phone calls including to the lawyers.
They would hang up on phone calls if they disapproved of the discussion.
Petty things like turning off GB News, the only TV station that Tommy wanted to watch.
Those are small things.
But outrageously, putting him in solitary confinement for seven months, it is a form of torture.
It is not meant to hold people in a long-term basis.
That DEI quota affirmative action governor, Nicola Marpley, was no business running any prison, let alone a maximum security prison full of terrorists and murderers.
The prison is totally out of control.
The gangs run that prison.
But they do run that prison.
They also prevented you from any further visits after your first prison visit.
But why do you think they've done that?
And how did you find out that you could no longer visit your friend?
You know, when Tommy was in HMP Belmarsh, which is sort of like the Guantanamo Bay of the UK, I visited him as often as I could because I wanted to make sure of his physical and mental health.
I wanted to make sure he was eating properly and getting exercise and things like that because I know he has been tortured before by throwing him in the hole.
I had one visit with Tommy this time and then the prison governor, Nicola Markley, simply refused.
No reason given other than I'm a journalist.
Well, what's the journalist these days?
Every single person who met with Tommy has a social media account.
I offered to give a lawyer's undertaking.
I'm a former lawyer myself.
I offered to give a binding undertaking and to sign a non-disclosure agreement if there was something she didn't want me.
I'm not going there to do a news story.
I'm going in there to check up on the lad.
But the prison governor is an abusive, sadistic woman.
I want to tell you something that's so astonishing, as you know, they cleared out 16 cells in a wing to hold him in solitary.
And then they cleared out another eight cells for him to paint as a prison job.
That's 24 hardened criminals who were released back onto the street just to hold Tommy Robinson.
Can you imagine the misdirection of resources?
Even today, to learn that the Solicitor General was hiring staff to Google to check where this Tommy's video might have popped up.
The amount of resources targeting Tommy Robinson, a peaceful political activist and journalist, compared to the actual crimes, including terrorism in this country, it's so astonishing.
And by the way, you can't put it all on Kieran Starmer because it was this way under the predecessor government, the Conservatives.
And if you bear in mind that the British prison system is so full, they're having to release prisoners early so they can re-encage other prisoners for far lesser crimes, but yet they cleared wings of cells just for Tommy.
Tommy didn't even need to be in prison.
Like I say, he was not a criminal.
It was a civil offense.
He could have been handled in other ways.
Tommy really has been treated like an enemy of the state.
I fear that he cannot expect any justice in the UK.
I still have a regard for the British justice system.
Part of that is hope.
Hard as I want to.
I believe that increasingly you can see the two-year justice in this country, and I fear that there's no way he can get a fair trial.
He's not done yet.
He'll be out of prison in a few days because he purged his contempt.
He showed the judge that he's taken down the video, and he has said in the future he won't break a court order.
He'll challenge the court order in court.
But he's still being charged under the Terrorism Act, a trumped-up charge, because he wouldn't give the cops his passcode for his cell phone without a search warrant.
So they're charging one of the terrorist matches.
You have actual terrorists in this country who walk free.
There's 40,000 jihadis walking the streets under surveillance by the British security services, but they're demanding Tommy give his passcode for his personal phone without a search warrant.
Again, misdirection of resources, focusing on a political and journalistic opponent rather than an actual criminal.
I should tell you, I come from Canada, as you know.
I also traveled to the United States.
The whole world is now familiar with Tommy Robinson.
In fact, they were discussing in court today several French websites that were hosting the video and a Danish website that refuses to take it down.
The Danish Free Press Society, on a principled basis, says they will not bend the knee to this court.
So Tommy Robinson, it's sort of, he's become martyred in a way.
And I think the reason for that is that there's something Christ-like about a man who will suffer, who will willingly take on physical and mental suffering to save his community.
There's some who will sacrifice himself.
That's astonishing.
I was there seven months ago when he sat in the court.
And when the judge said, if you take that down now, I'll lock months off your sentence.
And Tommy stood firm.
Now, you might say that's irrational.
You might say that's stubborn.
Yeah, it's both of those things.
It's also deeply principled.
Well, the only reason Tommy removed that documentary, to the best of my knowledge, is because he was pressured by friends and family to do so.
He didn't want to do it.
And the final question, what are your thoughts of what took place in there?
The judge made it clear that every target was hit and achieved for him to have his contempt purged.
But he did stipulate and made it clear that Tommy Robinson showed no remorse for what he'd done.
Was that the final was that the final victory, V for victory, should I say, for Tommy in there?
How did you feel when you heard the final words that Tommy has shown no remorse for what he'd done?
I thought that's Tommy Robinson.
I don't know if you remember, but Tommy used to work.
That's Rebel News.
And I joke because Tommy is not built to have a boss.
And there is something in Tommy that resists submission.
And that's what makes him a principled fighter.
That stubbornness that his foes despise, his friends adore.
And it's that streak of unwillingly, being unwilling to bend the knee or bend the head.
He will not bend.
And you need men like that.
You know, they say, I think it was Bernard Shaw who said, reasonable people conform to the world.
Unreasonable people make the world conform to them.
Therefore, all progress depends on unreasonable people.
In his own way, Tommy Robinson is stubborn and unreasonable.
But in the service of a cause, you cannot say that a man who has willingly taken seven months in solitary confinement is in it for himself.
He's in it to serve his community.
And that's what I find admirable about the man.
When the chips are down, he walks towards the fire.
I was with him, and I think you were there too, in Spain when he made the decision to come back to the United Kingdom to face his fate.
He knew he was coming back to a certain jail term.
And he came back.
He didn't run.
He didn't weep or hide or moan.
He came back to the UK.
And people will hate me for saying it, but there's a little drop of Gandhi in Tommy.
There's a little drop of Mandela in him.
And people will say, how dare you?
Tommy Robinson's Justice Battle00:15:28
You know what?
A guy who willingly sacrifices, who willingly submits to an unfair punishment in the service of his country, you're damn straight I'm comparing him to those men.
You're damn straight, I am.
And are you going to stick around for a little while until he's released?
Yeah, yeah, I want to, if it's within a few days, instead of schlepping home, I'm going to stay out here.
I want to see the lad.
I haven't been able to see him since that first visit.
I want to, I mean, I know you've seen him and others, so I know that eyes have been put on him.
I want to see him.
I want to talk to him.
I've tried to help him in a few minor ways.
I want to interview him on camera so he has a chance to say thanks to some of the many people who assisted him, including, and this is no longer a secret, so I'm not breaking this news, but Elon Musk, who paid for the legal bills in two of Tommy's legal matters.
I want Tommy to have a chance to speak to the, not just Elon Musk, but to the people who chipped in to Tommy Robinson's children's trust fund.
So a lot of people want to hear from Tommy and what happened to him.
I'm one of them.
So I want to have a chance to talk to him privately, but also to have him talk to the world.
Final thing, where can people find you to follow your work, even support your work, and just get follow you on your journalism journey, which is independent and it's free thinking and it's free speaking the best you can.
But if you're following the MSM and you want an alternative media source, where can people find you, Ezra?
Thanks very much.
It's just called RebelNews.com.
We have a special page for everything Tommy Robinson.
We call it TommyReports.com.
But if you just remember Rebel News, you'll be fine.
We're interested in the UK.
We're interested in free speech.
We're interested in mass migration, the Islamification of the public square.
We're interested in the reform movement.
I was up there in Runcorn following the by-election a few weeks ago when the reform won in a traditional Labour district.
And I think there's a realignment going on in the UK that people in North America should watch.
I mean, it's hopeful.
I know that there's some differences of opinion between Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson, but I think the trend is improving because of both men.
Yeah, there's certainly a lot more to look out for in the future.
I don't think the drama will end here, but Ezra, thank you for your time.
I appreciate that.
And if you're watching this and you like what you see and you want to hear the other side of the argument and interest in interviews that the mainstream will never ever publish or consider doing, remember to like and subscribe to my channel, The Dozen Milliam Tufts, and we'll keep the news coming.
Cheers, Ezra.
Great on.
So one of the stories that I know has got many of you talking over the last few months is, of course, the story of Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who most of you will know as Tommy Robinson.
We're all familiar with the story.
By now, he was sentenced for contempt of courts.
He got a significant sentence, 18 months.
Well, today, the High Court has essentially reduced that by four months.
Joining me now to discuss this is journalist founder of Rebel News in Canada.
Ezra Levant, welcome to you.
Also, I have to say, you are a personal friend of Tommy Robinson.
Bring us up to speed with what happened in the court today.
Sure.
Today, Tommy Robinson did something called purging his contempt.
That's a unique phrase in the law.
He basically, and through his lawyers, said, Your Honor, I was wrong.
I'm going to take down the offending video that violated the court order.
I'm going to ask everyone else on the internet who's uploaded it to take it down.
And I'm going to promise not to violate court orders again.
Really, in a contempt of court case, the judge just wants to know that you're obedient and submissive to the rule of law.
And by the way, Tommy Robinson pled guilty when he came back to the UK.
He was in Spain.
He flew back to the UK to face justice.
He didn't try and run and he said guilty, Your Honor.
He didn't contest it.
What I think surprised Tommy Robinson, and I would say surprised a lot of other observers, was the harshness of the sentence.
It wasn't just the seven months he's already served.
It's that he served that in a form of solitary confinement.
And that's just an astonishing punishment for basically a speech crime.
And when you look at the other speech crimes being meted out, including the case of Lucy Connolly, I think there's a disturbing trend that the UK is moving away from its historic role as the fountain of freedom of speech in the West.
Let me ask you this, because this is a point that's been discussed often.
So you just said he's in solitary confinement.
The prison, they would say it's more like segregation.
The prison would also say that that was something that his team requested in order to keep him safe.
It's not technically solitary confinement because he was allowed occasional guests, but there were lots of things done to him that were so unusual, especially for a civil prisoner.
You know, solitary confinement or segregation, if you like, is typically done to punish a prisoner who's already in prison and then misbehaves in prison, gets into a fight, say.
Tommy Robinson was put there not on his own accord, but by the prison governor, allegedly to protect him.
But that's such a harsh way to live, to be put in a hole in his cell 22, 23 hours a day.
That's my point.
I don't think Tommy Robinson was trying to evade punishment.
Like I say, he came back to England, he pled guilty.
But to put a man in solitary for seven months, it starts to take its toll on mental health.
So let's look at that because I mean, there's been an appeal against the sentence.
That appeal essentially was rejected.
There was an appeal against the conditions that we've been discussing, segregation, call it what you will.
That was also rejected.
So as far as the states essentially was concerned, the conditions and the duration were absolutely fair.
You're right.
It's been very frustrating.
And I've known Tommy for years.
He actually briefly worked for Rebel News.
And I learned quickly that Tommy has a lot of interactions with the law.
I want to give you my personal opinion, which is I think Tommy Robinson is becoming someone for whom it's difficult to get the same justice that someone who was less famous or infamous would get.
And again, I don't want to judge the entire British judiciary because it is one of the finest judicial systems in the world.
But there is a disparity between the way the law goes after certain people based on their politics.
I'm not an expert in the Lucy Connolly case, but 31 months for a tweet that was rude, I grant you.
But holy smokes, 31 months, that's more than some convicted members of grooming gangs get.
And when Kier Starmer set up the 24-hour day night court, the around-the-clock court, just to mass-produce justice to jail people who, I mean, you were probably following it along with me.
I was on the other side of the Atlantic.
I was astonished.
People were getting jailed for gesticulating.
One guy was jailed for shouting at a dog.
I don't believe in shouting at dogs, a police dog, but you don't put someone in jail for two years for that.
And it just seemed to me that the justice in the UK, you've got to be, justice has got to be blind.
It's got to be the same for a Labour Party person or a Conservative or a Reform or someone on the right or someone on the left or a Christian or a Muslim.
Justice, that's why the symbol of justice is the lady with the blindfold on her eyes.
But I fear that it's getting to the point where Tommy Robinson may not be able to get fair justice in the UK because there's such, he's become such a legal pariah.
And all of what he's done, he would say, is journalism and activism, not moral turpitude, not crimes of violence or fraud or anything.
He would say he's just a crusading journalist.
You could disagree with that, but seriously, seven months in solitary confinement, don't let it be normalized.
Because first they come for Tommy Robinson, then they go for Nigel Farage, then they go for Lucy Connolly.
And who's next?
It's easier to fight censorship in the first ditch than in the last ditch.
Even if you don't like Tommy Robinson, even if you think he's a hooligan and foul, fine.
But remember, the precedent you're setting with him will come back to bite you.
That's the nature of the law.
You've got to fight for free speech, even for people you don't like.
Yeah, I mean, I've got to say, if Kevin Salma was here, he would say, or people in his government, they would push back and say, well, hold on a second, because Tommy Robinson, he pled guilty.
He knew that he shouldn't be repeating the claims that lost a liable case there.
So they would say there's a difference between free speech and repeating lies would be their pushback.
Well, and that's really the most aggressive fact check I've ever seen in my life.
It's quite a fact check to be told, delete that or go to jail.
I mean, it's one thing for someone to call you out and say that's misinformation or disinformation.
I say again, Tommy Robinson did not try and evade justice.
He came back to the UK to face his fate.
I think he just didn't realize what seven months of solitary does to you, not just physically, but mentally.
He was having serious mental health issues that were deteriorating.
And an independent psychologist wrote a testimony to the court to that effect.
I just want to say this as the biggest Anglophile you'll ever meet, as someone who loves the United Kingdom so very much.
You don't want to become known as a place where people get sent to prison for months or years for word crimes, for thought crimes.
It was your son of Britain, George Orwell, who wrote about that authoritarian past.
Learn from you've got such a history, a legacy, a heritage of free speech.
And I just see it slipping away.
And it comes slowly at first, but then suddenly it gets quickly.
I don't know.
It just makes me a little bit sad.
I'm not here to say that Tommy Robinson is Snow White.
He pled guilty.
But it should never be normalized to send someone to prison for 31 months for a tweet.
That should not be normal.
Interesting stuff.
That's Ezra Levant there, the founder of Rebel Media.
Thank you for your time and for your thoughts this evening.
Thank you.
So Gunfau, your thoughts?
Well, I'm not really sure what the issue is here.
I mean, Tommy Robinson admitted multiple breaches of an injunction that prevented him from repeating false allegations made against a Syrian refugee who had previously successfully sued him for libel.
He continued to make those claims.
He went to prison.
Now, because he has had a change of attitude and purged his contempt, he's going to be released four months early.
I mean, is that not the judicial system working quite well?
He admitted he was guilty.
He went to prison.
He has now had a change of attitude.
He's purged his contempt.
And now he's going to be released.
To see here, yes.
Well, I don't understand what the issue is.
Stephen, your thoughts?
I think the issue really is what Ezra is picking up in his interview with yourself, is that for the vast majority of people now, they've always believed that this nation is about fairness and justice being blind.
And as a barrister who believes in my practice, who believes in the court system in our country, believes in our prosecutorial system is filled with people who generally want to do the right thing.
I don't necessarily agree with anybody who says that all our court systems are corrupt, and those involved are corrupt at all.
But what I do sense is that within the public now, they no longer trust our legal system.
They no longer trust our police system because in the case of Tommy Robinson, in the case of Lucy Connolly, and in the case of others that you can pick up, is the sentencing.
It's the sentencing and what their conditions are in prison.
And Lucy Connolly not being able to be released on a scheme that others would do.
Tommy Robinson being placed in a situation that some would say is solitary confinement, others would say segregation that would not apply to someone other than who it was.
And that impression, it's that impression that's having a negative impact on our judicial system.
I talked to my legal friends about it.
Everyone thinks we're corrupt now.
I mean, we used to be the old joke.
I mean, how many lawyers would you prefer to see?
You know, how many lawyers in the sand would you prefer to see up to their necks in sand?
And they'd say everyone, you know, because that's where we are.
But that was a joke then.
But now we're facing this all the time.
But, you know, I am a journalist.
If I was successfully sued for libel and I continued to repeat those false allegations, I would expect the arm of the law to come down on me.
I would.
I don't understand why it would be any different for Tommy Robinson.
And he admitted that he had done this as well.
He went to prison.
He was put in segregation, solitary confinement.
But that is because he is a well-known figure who clearly has made a lot of enemies in his time.
It's for his own safety as well as everyone else.
Yeah, I found that latter point a really interesting one because I think it is a terrible indictment on our prison system that any individual would need to essentially be segregated for their safety because the prison can't control their.
But we know that happens in a number of cases, not just with Tommy Robinson.
There are lots of high-profile prisoners who have done terrible crimes are often having to be segregated from other prisoners.
We know prisoners.
No, not because of his actions in the prison.
Yeah, you're talking about someone.
You're talking about a prisoner that's done something wrong.
That's therefore segregated.
What I'm talking about here in this case of Tommy Robinson, is the fact that a prisoner, whatever anyone thinks to him, if you need to segregate him because your other and it's predominantly the Muslim groups that they can't control these guys that are Robert Jenrick speaks frequently about this I would say that actually there's something terrible going on in our prison systems if you can't actually control the people that are in it.
But anyway look, he knows Tommy Robinson, very divisive man.
He will admit that.
I'm sure himself and you all have, I'm sure, your own opinions and your strong opinions about that.
But look, That's all we have got time for.
Many of you, by the way, are talking about Lucy Connolly.
Saying, whatever happened to that fellow from Herp Not Hayes, the one that was going around talking about people being acid attacks when actually it wasn't true.
Good question.
Anyway, that's all I've got time for.
Thanks, guys.
Ezra Levant, great to see you.
Thank you, you too.
And you in London means one thing.
We're here at the High Court, your favorite spot in London.
I know you don't go anywhere else in London for the High Court.
Tommy.
Tommy Robinson, there was a case today.
You've just flown in.
Just let us know what it was about, overturning something, and then the positive decision that we've just heard.
Sure.
You know, I flew seven hours.
It was a two-hour cab ride to get into the city.
I was an hour on the Toronto side, so that's 10 hours.
I've journeyed for a half-hour court hearing, but I'm happy for it because it's good news.
Tommy Robinson's Contempt Case00:05:48
Tommy was in prison for contempt of court.
That's not a crime.
It's a very unusual kind of law where you sort of offend the judge himself.
So to get out of the pickle, you've got to fix things with that judge.
It's not even a neutral judge.
It's a weird kind of law.
It's called purging your contempt.
And you've got to basically show the court that you're governable, that you submit to their authority.
Tommy submit?
Well, that's the thing.
As you know, years ago, Tommy worked for Rebel News.
And I like to say Tommy didn't work for Rebel News.
Tommy worked at Rebel News.
Tommy is not good at having bosses.
I'm joking around.
That's one of the characteristics about him that makes him so effective is his stubbornness to the point that other people would call it irrational, but it's not irrational.
It's just a deeply principled man.
The rules of contempt and the rules in general are not built for conscientious objectors.
The punitive elements of our law are enough to guide most people.
But there are some unique people in the sweep of time who you can punish them and they take it as a badge of honor.
Tommy Robinson is such a man.
And I was there seven months ago when the judge basically, the same judge, said, if you take that video, Tommy posted a video to the internet, a documentary called Silenced.
And a judge said, don't do that.
Don't do that.
I'm going to order you not to do that.
Tommy did it anyways.
And Judge Jeremy Johnson, seven months ago, said, Mr. Yakshi Lennon, if you take that down, I will lop months off your sentence.
And he would not.
And how many people do you know would take, and not just, this is not just any old prison, this is a maximum security prison full of murderers.
And it's even worse than that.
Tommy was kept in solitary confinement.
You're going to find this hard to believe.
They emptied out 16 cells to make a whole wing of the prison empty.
And then when Tommy said he wanted to get out of his cell to work, painting, he actually wanted to interact with people because he was in solitary.
They emptied out another eight cells for him to paint those cells solitary.
And one thing, our prisons are overflowing, and yet there's spare space.
They sent 24 criminals out of, they released 24 violent criminals to hold Tommy Robinson.
Can you just stop and think about that?
Tommy Robinson made a thought crime.
It was a words crime.
It wasn't a crime at all.
24 actual criminals were set free to hold him.
That's the state of the UK, but you know that.
According to the Times of London, every day, 30 people are arrested for non-crime hate incidents on social media.
And Tommy's just the most spectacular case and the most stubborn.
Anyhow, here's the news.
Tommy has purged his contempt by taking down the tweet in question and by demonstrating to the judge that he was trying to get other people to take it down and in all but a handful of cases was successful.
The judge noted that Tommy was not contrite and did not apologize, but that Tommy did make it clear that in the future if he disagrees with a court order, he'll appeal it rather than defying it.
And I think that's wise anyways.
Tommy's a tough guy, physically tough, mentally tough, but solitary confinement is generally regarded as a form of torture.
It's used typically for someone who's already in prison, who engages in misconduct, again in prison.
What do you do with someone in prison who misbehaves in prison?
You can't imprison them.
He's already in prison.
You put him in the hole.
You put him in a box.
It's a short-term form of torture that will break a man's spirit.
That's why you do it.
No human is meant to be in that condition for seven months.
I think it was actually a grave mark on the British prison system and the prison governor at HMP Woodhill, Nicola Marfleet.
Lord Pearson has written to her numerous times and she just says, well, I can do what I like because the law lets me do what I like.
She is a DEI hire.
And the prison is completely out of control.
It's run by the gangs.
That's my point.
That's why they had to let 24 violent criminals free to hold Tommy because Nicola Marfleet does not actually control the prison.
And to appear butched, to appear in control, she takes out her vengeance on Tommy Robinson.
Let me give you one tiny example.
Tommy's got three teenage kids.
So he had certain telephone privileges, but Marfleet said only during the day.
Well, the kids are at school.
Oh, well, he has his phone privileges, doesn't he?
Yeah, when the kids are at school.
And constantly breaking visitor appointments, including myself.
I had one scheduled.
I was coming over.
Oh, sorry, you're not allowed.
Whimsical, capricious, the last little things like banning GB news from the prison TV.
I mean, how petty this spiteful, sadistic woman, Nicola Marfleet, whose prison is completely out of control, but boy, she shows how butched she is by taking on Tommy.
Anyways, long story short, Tommy Robinson will be out in the next few days.
And, you know, 165 million people did watch that documentary before Tommy took it down.
Tommy Robinson Freed00:06:37
That's more than the pop, that's more than, it's about double the population of the UK, more than double the population of the UK.
That's astonishing.
And of course, Elon Musk has reposted it, and Elon Musk made Tommy probably the most famous political prisoner in the world from the beginning of this year.
And that suddenly put Tommy in a different position where the world now knows instead of this being a UK problem, it's a world issue.
You know what?
On New Year's Day, Elon Musk tweeted, freed Tommy Robinson.
You looked at your phone, thought, what's happening?
Oh, yeah.
And you know what?
I wrote a public note back to Elon Musk, and he retweeted that, got 41 million views.
I mean, it's astonishing to engage with such a prominent and powerful man and for him to raise the issue of freedom of speech.
And I should note that when Kier Starmer visited the White House, President Trump, Vice President Vance, they raised the issue of freedom of speech with the PM.
Now, they made specific reference to a case of Brits who peacefully pray in an abortion setting and are arrested for that.
Where it's illegal to pray within 500 feet of an abortion clinic.
Where the cops ask you what you're praying in your mind.
Absolutely astonishing.
That statistic I mentioned earlier about the 30-day arrest a day.
You know, it was Konstantin Kisson who said, how many do you think are arrested per day in Russia?
Now, I wouldn't want to be in Russia.
I would be probably arrested because I prickle back against the government, and I'm not a fan of Vladimir Putin.
He's a former KGB agent.
I would not do well in Russia.
But what would we say if 30 people a day were arrested in Russia for social media?
We would call that what it is, which is an authoritarian police state.
Well, that's the UK for you today.
And especially on issues where Keir Starmer has a sensitive spot.
Issues about Islam, migration, terrorism, grooming gangs, rape games.
These are the things that Keir Starmer doesn't want to be talked about.
And it's not just Keir Starmer.
I can't put it on him.
14 years of conservatives.
Conservatives.
Yeah.
Anyways, I'm blabbing too much.
Forgive me.
It's the second wind.
I haven't slept in a day.
But I'm glad to be here for some happy news.
The headline is, Tommy Robinson will go free in a matter of days.
To see the way Ezra has dressed up, and I haven't, and I've come from around the corner.
It's just my jacket.
It's just a jacket.
I'm wearing blue jeans.
So just last thing, you've flown in.
You were probably expecting this to last all day.
It's been 30 minutes.
You flew all night for 30 minutes, but we've had a huge result.
And you posted, you said that you believe it's going to be released.
And I thought, that's Ezra just being eternally optimistic.
But actually, your view and your perspective on this was buying on correct.
You know, I've read probably 50 contempt of court cases in the UK.
Because Tommy, this is his third contempt case going from memory.
And I've read them, most of them.
Not most, I've read a great number.
And in almost every case, the judge is simply looking for the contemner, that's the person who's in trouble, to say, I submit.
And when you think about it, that is necessary for the rule of law.
If we all defied judgments that we disagreed with, then the courts would have no power.
And there was a moment in there where the judge said, Tommy has recognized that if there's a court order he doesn't like, the right thing to do is to appeal it rather than break it.
And who could argue with that?
Now, some might say Tommy Robinson can't get a fair trial in the United Kingdom, that the judges are not neutral arbiters, that he is treated as an enemy of the state.
And there's a lot to that.
I think there is a two-tier justice system in this country.
I don't think anyone can deny that when you look at how social media posts during some of the Southport riots sent people to prison for two, three years for hurdy words and actual violence.
I mean, I think of the by-election up in Rencorn where Iron Mike, the Labor MP, beat the tar out of a constituent.
What did he serve?
Two days in jail for that?
Because he's one of the righteous people, one of the, you know, one of our betters.
Whereas, I don't need to tell you that.
You know that better than me.
But today was a good day.
Tommy will be out, and he still faces other legal matters.
He still faces a charge under the Terrorism Act for not giving the police the passcode to his phone.
But we'll slowly fight these fights.
And I can tell you that Tommy is known around the world.
And, of course, across the UK, but around the world.
And he has supporters around the world.
And that's why I came in today.
I knew it would be brief.
I didn't think it would be half an hour.
I thought it would be an hour.
But really, as soon as the judge was shown that Tommy had purged his contempt, after seven months in solitary confinement, there was no way he could keep him in.
And Tommy is certainly that verse, a prophet without honor in his own tongue.
That's certainly for Tommy.
You're hanging around, are you, in London for a few days?
Yeah, I'll be here.
I want to be here for when Tommy is released, and we don't know for certain when that's going to be.
So instead of flying home tonight, which I normally come and go on the same day, I'm going to putter around London for a couple of days.
I'm going to have a nice snooze to catch up.
And you know what?
This weather is unseasonably lovely.
And I don't mind a little bit of the gloomy overcast.
To me, that's London.
But it's a wonderful city.
It's got its problems, but it really is the greatest city in the world.
While Britain has been shamed on the world stage today because of the ongoing incarceration of Lucy Connolly, Tommy Robinson, Britain's other most famous political prisoner, was freed.
He's not out of HMP Woodhill yet after seven months of truly barbaric solitary confinement as they try and destroy this man physically and mentally, but he will be within a week.
Tommy Robinson Released Soon00:05:12
Tommy Robinson's team posted a picture of him hugging his children, writing, we're happy to announce Tommy Robinson will be freed from prison within the week and coming home to his children.
Thank you all for the continued support.
It's kept him going in the darkest days.
Now, of course, as is always the case, the mainstream media, they only mention Tommy Robinson when there's a court case.
That's it.
So I don't trust at all their reporting their version of events, which is why we have Ezra Levant of Red Bull News, who is in court today, and Kathy Ginger, editor of Conservative Women, who has followed this case for many, many months.
But this is how the news did break in the past few hours.
Very important breaking news.
Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yatzi-Lenin, is due to be released from prison within the next week after his 18-month sentence for the civil offense of contempt of court was cut by four months at the High Court.
That's a turn up.
Interesting.
Just to remind you the details of that story, there was a film made by Tommy Robinson, which included, I think he voiced over, was a part of this film, which made allegations about a schoolboy in this country.
And that film was banned for being untrue in relation to that story about that young boy.
Tommy Robinson played it at a rally and he put it online and he was told by the court that he must not show this movie because of the defamatory allegations that it drew about this particular child.
He did.
He kept playing it.
He kept playing it.
He got put away for that.
Now, some people say the sentence was far too punitive because Tommy Robinson is a political figure and it was seen to be lawfare, justice that wasn't being served fairly because of who Tommy Robinson is and what he represents.
So that is a very interesting turn of events.
And of course, he was kept in solitary confinement.
The authorities argued for his own safety because he would have been targeted by some other prisoners and there were serious concerns about his mental health.
That's right.
But Tommy Robinson's spokespeople have said consistently that they do not believe that he was in solitary confinement for his own safety, that he was really struggling in prison and that he wants to come out.
Well, he will be out within the next week.
Now, his 18-month sentence was reduced by four months at the High Court.
Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is due to be released from prison within the next week.
He was jailed for 18 months for the civil offense of contempt of court.
The sentence has been reduced by four months at the High Court.
All right, I want to bring you breaking news that's come into us concerning Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who goes by the name of Tommy Robinson.
He is due to be released from prison within the next week after his 18-month sentence for contempt of court was reduced by four months at the High Court.
Tom Robinson, who is a far-right activist, was jailed for 18 months in October of last year after admitting to 10 breaches of a high court order for contempt.
He's 42 and will be released from prison within the next week out of the high court.
But one man who I do trust to deliver the truth about what really happened in court is Ezra Levant, the boss of Rebel News, who flew from Canada to be at the High Court today.
Ezra, thank you so much for being here on Outspoken.
I know it's been a really long day, but so important you can tell our audience what really happened today.
Sure, Tommy was present by a video link from the prison.
It was a smallish courtroom, only about half a dozen members in the public gallery and a ton of lawyers, as there always are.
The Solicitor General, that is the government, sent a lawyer, but he didn't really argue against Tommy's release.
I'm not sure exactly why they were there other than the government is obviously obsessed with Tommy Robinson.
Here's the thing.
Remember, Tommy Robinson did not claim he didn't do the wrong thing.
He pled guilty.
He flew back from overseas to the UK to face his fate.
What I think was shocking to him and so many others is how punitive the sentence was.
Solitary confinement, confined to a cell 22 or 23 hours a day, no human interaction with other prisoners.
Just a treatment that goes beyond any norm.
As you know, solitary confinement is used as a punishment for prisoners who are already in prison but commit another offense while in jail.
How do you punish someone already in jail?
You put them in a box.
You don't put a man in a box for seven months because, why?
Because the prison authorities do not run Woodhill prison.
And most prisons in the UK have extreme problems with gangs, many of which are Islamic gangs that would kill Tommy if they could.
Horrifying Kathy's Criticism00:03:11
Well, they are.
Let's just be honest.
Woodhill is run by Muslim gangs.
Yeah, in fact.
The prison guard had their throat slashed last week.
Exactly right.
And to put Tommy there in the first place was absurd.
And the prison is out of control.
And the governor, who I understand just retired a few days ago, did not run the prison.
So she had to clear out a whole wing, letting those prisoners go back into the community so they could hold Tommy there.
The whole thing is absurd.
I think Tommy Robinson is the first journalist to be charged with contempt of court in almost a century and the first one to be jailed for that.
And no other journalist has spent seven months in solitary for anything like it.
I mean, Julian Assange, but he was accused of other violent crimes.
It really is of that magnitude.
Here's my point.
And I listened carefully to the case of Lucy Connolly.
And every week I see another case of someone praying peacefully and the police saying, what are you praying about?
And it's just maybe you're numb to it because you're Brits, so you're in the middle of it.
It's like that old saying about the frog.
If you throw a frog into hot water, it jumps right out.
But if you slowly raise the temperature, the frog doesn't notice.
Maybe you Brits, because you live here, you become desensitized to it.
Oh, yeah, no, no, one of them, another non-I mean, we know, don't we, Kathy?
We know.
We know.
I guess what's so horrifying, and Kathy, we were obviously in court a few weeks ago on this Tommy Robinson case.
What's so horrifying, Kathy?
And obviously, we know a lot about the mainstream media, given our histories.
It's horrifying to see the dishonest reporting of this case because that is all designed to keep the public accepting what is going on.
I think there are two things.
I think the mainstream media is extraordinarily biased and it's a mouthpiece for the government now, more than it has ever been.
Even when the Conservatives have in, because there was a nominal thing that the Conservatives might be a little right-wing, which of course they're not.
They're left progressives too.
The MSM had some vestige of criticism left in, but they don't act as the force of state.
They don't hold government to account.
They're absolutely the mouthpiece.
You could see it in the report clips that you've just shown on both Tommy and Lucy.
Now, compare that with the out of outside court piece that Esler posted this morning.
Absolutely brilliant, classy piece of journalism, which none of our journalists seem to be capable of, or if they were, dare do.
Not counting you, Dan, but in the mainstream.
Now, I'm putting that up on the Conservative Woman tomorrow because that is an example of what proper court reporting should be.
You will not see that tomorrow or tonight on BBC, on Sky, on ITV.
It will be nowhere.
But as well as that, I am afraid there's an element of truth in what Esdra says.
Silence And Savagery00:03:34
Our population has become very compliant.
It's that there's silence everywhere.
I think partly because they put effectively are putting people in the gallows, like, and saying, this is what happens to you if you so much as open your mouth to have any criticism of immigration, let alone you are not allowed to even criticize savagery if it's caused by an immigrant.
Oh, no, you mustn't say it's an immigrant who's caused the savagery.
Yet we know statistically that there's a high, high level of immigrant crimes.
There are high, high level of people of non-British nationality who've conducted British crimes in our prisons.
So the country has been silenced and people are, I'm afraid, a lot weak and compliant.
People were appalled to find out that I was going to speak at a Tommy Robinson rally in defense of him.
And the ones who weren't appalled said, oh, you're very brave, Kathy.
So, you know, I'm afraid sometimes I think whether what's the band of few, there's some term for it.
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Well, yeah, because think at around the time that Lucy Connolly was arrested, two brilliant outspoken regulars, Alison Pearson of the Daily Telegraph and the businesswoman Bernie Spofforth, who now runs the media enterprise, if this is true, they were also both visited by the police for tweets.
Law Outlaws Banned00:11:15
So the message that this government, and trust me, it's the government, this is all coming from our human rights lawyer at the top of this authoritarian regime.
The message is zip it, keep it quiet.
And it's terrifying.
But Ezra, look, I wanted to ask you about the practicalities of Tommy deciding to take down silence.
Because when I was with him at HMP Woodhill in December, and of course, that's a long time ago now.
And he's had visits from people like us banned over many, many weeks.
I mean, the treatment, look, we all know how terrible the treatment has been.
But he was so clear to me, Ezra.
He was like, I ain't taking this down.
No way.
I don't give a damn that they're not going to let me out early.
I am not taking it down.
So do you know anything about the negotiations behind the scenes?
Did people like you, other close friends, family members really lean on him to say, look, it's just not worth it.
You've made your point, or was this being driven by Tommy himself?
Well, first of all, the judge, when he sentenced Tommy seven months ago, said, I'm going to make the sentence two parts.
One is to punish you for what you've done.
The other is, the judge said, coercive to try and compel you to take down the video.
So part one was, no matter what, we're going to punish you.
Part two was, if you want out sooner, take it down.
So that was the pathway that the judge had sort of telegraphed to Tommy seven months ago.
Like you say, I haven't been able to get into Tommy because the prison governor had barred me after my first visit, even though I didn't do anything wrong.
I don't really, to this day, know why I was barred.
But I think that Tommy's mental state was declining.
And who wouldn't?
You put someone in a box 23 hours, 22, 23 hours a day, and then you play games with them.
Here's an example of one that just irks me.
Tommy has teenage kids.
The prison said, sure, you can phone them during the day only.
Well, the kids are at school.
And they wouldn't let Tommy make phone calls outside of those hours because they needed staff to listen to the calls or whatever.
So he was effectively barred from talking to his own kids.
They listened in on the calls.
They cut off calls.
They cut off visitors, as you said.
There's a whole host of small things.
They banned GB News from the prison TVs.
That was the only channel Tommy could stomach.
Those are small things, although when you're in a box for 22, 23 hours a day, maybe they're not so small.
But I just think that, I don't know.
Let me give you a quick anecdote.
I had a black cab, like an old school cabby today, and I told him about the case.
And there's some wonderful British traits like stiff upper lip and assume the best about people.
Like some of my favorite things about the Brits, how have they manifested themselves?
The cabby today said, oh, well, you know, I'm sure he's done something wrong.
Maybe he'll think twice.
We don't want speech that incites violence.
Okay, he's right.
But he's eliding, he's confusing, you know, hurtful words with actually inciting violence, which of course we would never.
So here's a good guy, a regular cabbie.
I'd maybe even call him a touch conservative.
And he was, you know, that British, well, you know, I'm sure it's fine.
The system is good.
Like, I just, I feel like Brits don't have their guard up because maybe it's too horrible to contemplate what's happening.
If there was a wife of a politician in my country who was sentenced to 31 months in prison for a thoughtless tweet that was up for four hours, I think it would be shocking.
Katie Hopkins says the storm is coming.
I hope she's right.
I certainly sense today real anger, but I guess I also sense that fear.
And on that note, Ezra, can you talk to me at all?
I mean, I know obviously you haven't seen him because he hasn't been released yet.
Oh, to answer your earlier question.
Yeah, they did.
They did say, Tommy, get out of there.
You've made your point.
And I, I mean, listen, before he went in, I said to the lad, I said, at that point, the video had been seen 50 million times.
It was probably more than any other British documentary.
I said, look, how about declare victory?
I mean, 50 million.
And he was adamant.
And let me say one quick thing about Tommy.
In some ways, he would be called irrational.
Like, it's irrational to voluntarily take so much punishment.
The whole system is designed to deter people by saying, if you don't listen to court orders, we're going to punish you harder and harder and harder.
And that works on 99.9% of people.
But what about that one in a thousand or maybe one in a million who says, no, I am motivated by principle and I am going to take this punishment.
And some people might even say in a Christ-like way, I will suffer for the higher purpose and for my countrymen.
And so the law doesn't really know what to do with someone like Tommy Robinson because he's stubborn and he, you know, and we need stubborn people to make change in the system.
And he was the pointy edge of the spear.
Now you have all sorts of other people talking about the issues.
There was a long time there were really grooming gangs.
You weren't allowed to talk about them.
I mean, one or two journalists and deportation.
I was up in Runcorn a couple of weeks ago.
You know, the Reform UK platform, freeze immigration, stop the boats.
Oh my heavens.
I remember it wasn't that long ago when Reform wouldn't say that kind of thing out loud.
I mean, he shifted the Overton window without any doubt.
But the big question, Ezra, is what now?
What is the plan?
Because of course, there are all of these other attempts by the British deep state to put Tommy back in jail.
Like he knows that he is going to be targeted.
So he already is.
The terrorist magnet.
Exactly.
So what now?
How is he going to stay out of jail?
What is the plan now?
Well, I mean, I think he's got to be extremely careful because the state has an enormous amount of resources hunting him.
And sometimes he doesn't even have to do anything wrong for them to hunt them.
Remember when he attended the march against anti-Semitism about a year ago, a year and a half ago?
I was there, by the way, and I bumped into him by, I didn't know he was going to be there.
I literally bumped into him by accident.
I was thrilled that he was there because I'm a Jew myself.
I'm sympathetic to Israel.
I was delighted to have him there.
Just by being there, someone complained about him and he was banned from London for months.
So it's not as if he was doing anything wrong.
So many of things that Tommy does, it's as if, like La Vrenti Berria, the old Soviet secret policeman, says, show me the man, I'll find you the crime.
I hate to say it, but I think we're getting to the point where I don't know if Tommy Robinson can even get a fair trial in this country.
And if the law doesn't get him, the outlaws might get him.
You know, there's something called an Osman warning.
It's the name of a case where I won't explain where the name comes from, but if police have actionable intelligence that you are about to be attacked, they have to physically come to you and hand you a piece of paper called an Osman warning detailing the threat to your life.
Tommy's received, I think, 11 or 12 of these.
Some of these people have been arrested, tried, convicted, and jailed.
Like actual terrorist schemes, that's probably more terrorist schemes to get him than 99% of MPs and cabinet ministers.
I would say only the prime minister himself has perhaps had 11 attempts on his life.
So if the law doesn't get him, the outlaws will.
I don't know if this is a safe country for him.
And, you know, it may be.
Do you think he will stay or is there the possibility of seeking asylum, for example, in the US?
Well, I mean, I'm not that intimately familiar with his personal life.
I know he was spending some time in Spain, and I think it's dangerous for him in the UK.
And I don't know.
I mean, I think that America, many of these problems are not as acute.
And I think they're dealing with them.
They're dealing with some of these problems of anti-Semitism, radical Islam, mass immigration.
So maybe they're a step ahead of the UK that way.
I don't know.
Listen, I haven't had a chance to have a personal heart-to-heart with him in months because the prison won't let me in.
Hopefully this week I'll have a chance to catch up with him.
And one of the things I'm worried about, as you may know, is his family.
I mean, I don't mean to be dark, but there is a chance that Tommy's life will not end naturally.
And planning for that and trying to avoid that, but preparing to take care of the kids, that is something that's on my mind.
And I know it's on Tommy's mind as well.
It's terrible.
It's terrible that a Brit cannot feel safe in his own country, either from the law or from bandits.
And that's the state of things right now.
I don't mean, listen, I love the United States.
That's why it's so strange to me these things are happening.
It's chilling.
And look, I know Kathy will agree with me.
We are so grateful, Edwer, for people like you who do care enough about the United Kingdom to raise the alarm.
I mean, in some ways, I find it so sad when I see major American commentators who I really respect.
For example, even today, like Tim Paul saying, F the United Kingdom.
Then I think about what's going on and it's like, I get it.
I understand it.
It is so disturbing.
And so that's, I guess, where we find ourselves.
But it is a very, very worrying state.
I think the tide is turning a little bit here in the UK.
As you know, I was here a few weeks ago.
There was a critical by-election in the north that flipped from 53% for the Labour Party to a win for Nigel Farage's Reform UK.
And just yesterday, there was a new poll out in the UK in general with the Reform UK way out in front and the Conservative Party in fourth place, if you can believe it.
That shows you that people don't believe the Conservative Party has a chance.
They think it's a spent force.
And they know that whatever the Conservative Party says these days, both the right and the left will say, you had 14 years to do that.
because they had a 14-year term until they were just kicked out last year and you didn't do it.
So it'll be interesting to see how things go.
It gives me a little bit of hope what's going on in the UK today.
And maybe we can learn from that.
Maybe we can be a little bolder in talking about immigration reform and talking about terrorism and talking about multiculturalism in our own country.
Anyways, I'll keep you up to date on this important story, which is important because it's about free speech.
On that note, I think things are worse.
On the immigration front, I think things are getting better here in the UK.
Hope in UK Politics00:00:54
But on free speech, in many ways, they're worse.
There was a case of the spouse of a Conservative political counselor, and she made a tweet about some terrorist stabbings of some children.
She made this tweet a few months ago.
And the tweet was up for a few hours.
It was a rude tweet, no doubt about it.
And she was sentenced to 31 months in prison today, literally the same day Tommy Robinson had his hearing at the court.
So did Lucy Donnelly.
And she lost her appeal.
She was remanded to serve the rest of her 31-month sentence for a tweet, which of course is a longer sentence than many rapists in this country get.
So not everything is going well in the UK, but a few things are, and you've got to note them while you can.
All right, from Rebel News here in London and everywhere around the world, to you at home.