Tommy Robinson has pleaded with Donald Trump to grant him asylum in the US to escape a potential prison sentence in the UK.
The English Defence League founder has been found in contempt of court after filming defendants outside Leeds Crown Court and broadcasting the footage on social media in breach of a reporting ban.
High Court judges have found that Robinson “encouraged mob rule” by live-streaming footage of men accused of the sexual exploitation of young girls at Leeds Crown Court in May 2018.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Dame Victoria Sharp said the video will have been seen by viewers as “an incitement” to harass the defendants.
The Old Bailey heard the video almost collapsed the trial of a West Yorkshire grooming gang, with one of the accused appealing against his conviction on the ground he had been unable to receive a fair hearing.
Robinson is expected to be sentenced tomorrow. In a broadcast on the InfoWars website, he said: “I feel like I’m two days away from being sentenced to death in the UK.
“I beg Donald Trump, I beg the American government, to look at my case. I need evacuation from this country because dark forces are at work,” said Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.
He claimed he would be killed if he is jailed, alleging that British prisons are “controlled by jihadi gangs”.
He concluded: “This is a direct appeal on behalf of my family – we love the United States, I have no future here [in Britain]. The country has fallen.”
The Mirror says there is “no evidence” that British jails are controlled by jihadi gangs, while The Sun describes Robinson’s appeal as “bizarre”.
A series of commentators have argued there is an irony in Robinson, who has spoken out against refugees, seeking asylum in a foreign country. As The Independent points out, “everyone is making the same point”.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
-
Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 23 September 2023The Week’s daily digest of the news agenda, published at 8am
-
Pinochet’s coup in Chile 50 years on
The Explainer Half a century on, the former leader still sharply divides opinion in his home country
-
The Week Unwrapped: Ghost tankers, loyalty cards and contempt
Podcast Should we be worried about illicit oil tankers? What are the limits to protests outside court? And are supermarket loyalty schemes all they seem?
-
Texas’s abortion law: the Republicans get their way, at last
Speed Read SB8 authorises private citizens to sue anyone who performs, ‘aids or abets’ an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy
-
Changing legal gender: what’s new and how does it work?
Speed Read Cost of a gender recognition certificate application is reduced from £140 to £5
-
America’s bloodiest state votes to ban the death penalty
Speed Read Virginia has executed more than 1,300 people in its 400-year history
-
FBI accused of ‘fake’ background check on Donald Trump Supreme Court nominee
Speed Read Democratic senator calls for ‘proper oversight’ over Brett Kavanaugh investigation into sexual assault claims
-
Family of Malcolm X claims letter proves FBI and NYPD involved in his murder
Speed Read Daughters of assassinated civil rights leader demand reopening of investigation
-
Meghan Markle granted nine-month delay in Mail on Sunday privacy case
Speed Read Duchess of Sussex had applied for summary judgement in battle over letters sent to her estranged father
-
Hong Kong: how HSBC became wrapped up in China’s ‘security law’
Speed Read Global bank has spent much of 2020 embroiled in fierce debate over territory’s sovereignty
-
Why the government’s most senior lawyer resigned
Speed Read Sir Jonathan Jones had long expressed doubts about the government’s commitment to upholding the law
