To almost feel a shred of sympathy for Tommy Robinson

But your first and third paragraphs don’t connect.

It’s like saying it’s disturbing that some people agree with veganism even after you’ve pointed out that Hitler did terrible things. The motion stands or falls on its merits. It doesn’t switch from true to untrue (or v.v.) because of what TR says or does.

Really don’t get how a man who’s clearly intellectually very savvy and has demonstrated an ability to drum up real hatred and mass demonstrations over the years as well as physical violence and aggression, destruction of property, waste of police resources to deploy extra security when they cause damage, no accountability towards his own actions of hatred and the attacks towards Muslims and anyone that could appear Muslim or anyone that is brown or even appears to be illegal.

If he was brown, or “foreign” or appears Muslim (even though anyone can be Muslim - it’s not a race) and had the same views and generate the same level of aggression would you feel sorry for him then? That’s your answer and also tells you how biased you are.

It’s disturbing 41 people agreed with the motion who attend the university.

Yabu

I don’t think he comes from the background you think he does. His arguments were destroyed because they are deeply flawed and have no evidence to back them up. That’s bigotry not lack of education.

Part of being an adult is not blaming your failure to be remotely descent on others. He's a racist. I am not crying for them and we need not have any softess for them.

Has anyone seen the latest clip of him having a go at someone in an airport who was rude to him? Trying to get the guy to go to the toilets with him (presumably for a fight rather than anything saucy).

He won’t care and nor will his supporters. And no, I feel not a shred of sympathy for him.

His rhetoric creates a far more hostile environment for people like me so eff him.

Completely agree with what you've written here @Persephonia1966 ....yes, Luton has always been a bit shit. The PP who I feel are trying to say it's due to immigration can just fuck off. Sorry to be blunt but if you knew Luton, knew its history, knew the amazing people who have made it home you wouldn't be trying to allude to Islam and immigration from the Asian sub-continent as a reason for it being shit.....it just is! Despite this, I love my home town. I grew up there in the 80s & the thugs in my experience were mainly Combat 18 (for the young ones they were a far-right Neo Nazi group), not any other group....apart from the orginal MIGS obviously, and then Millwall when they used to pay us a visit x

Completely agree with what you've written here @Persephonia1966 ....yes, Luton has always been a bit shit. The PP who I feel are trying to say it's due to immigration can just fuck off. Sorry to be blunt but if you knew Luton, knew its history, knew the amazing people who have made it home you wouldn't be trying to allude to Islam and immigration from the Asian sub-continent as a reason for it being shit.....it just is! Despite this, I love my home town. I grew up there in the 80s & the thugs in my experience were mainly Combat 18 (for the young ones they were a far-right Neo Nazi group), not any other group....apart from the orginal MIGS obviously, and then Millwall when they used to pay us a visit x

There’s a very interesting interview with him on Heretics podcast, as well as his Oxford Union speech.

Then portray him reasonably well. For balance I think it’s worth remembering his massive list of criminal convictions, violence, and the fact he ran the EDL.

I’m not a fan at all, but I think it’s much better that we all actually listen to these bêtes noir (whether JKR, who is one of my heroes, or TR)

I have never read anything he has ever said. I have never listened to him speak. He has been portrayed as a right wing oaf, an uneducated, racist, rabble rousing thug. I have accepted that this is who he is.

I've always wondered how people can berate JKR, call her anti trans, right wing, fascist, say she has the blood of trans children on her hands - without having read anything she's written.

I'm beginning to understand a bit now. I'm going to go for a lie down.

Luton was always working class and had slums etc and was heavily bombed during WW2. But it suffered hugely as a result of deindustrialisation and the closure of factories and the economic and social problems that brought. They do still make a lot of stuff there and most of the people are very nice. It's not a horrible wasteland full of evil Muslims and white racist gangs constantly fighting each other. It's just that it has been hit by the same issues that affected many towns/regional cities in the second half of the 20th century.

Luton has always been shit. As has Slough, they were awful long before any immigration began.

Do you mean Luton Town MIGS?

Was there any common denominator to the people who made Luton be a shite place, ie religion or ethnicity? If yes, is it problematic to acknowledge that?

Mr Yaxley-Lennon and I are from the same town and went to the same school, I was slightly before his time there.
I've grown up not to be an utter racist scumbag. Yes, Luton was a bit of a shite place to grow up, you grew up quickly to avoid trouble but in no way should that make anyone feel a shred of sympathy for this utter bellend. HTH 😁

The journalist described a group of WC teen girls as 'obsessed with shagging'. Did the implication of that pass you by? Because I find your reduction of it surprising if you have fully thought that one through in a context of a discussion on child sexual exploitation.

Thankyou for talking about this! IMO The way the white working class girls were seen was really central to why the abuse was allowed in the case of the Asian gangs AND the 60% of grooming gangs that were of different backgrounds. It was a really noticeable stereotype in the 90s and 2000s that white working class girls were "like that" and the sort of memory wiping the right wing media is doing is really disturbing.

If you are saying that bad or ineffective people hide behind worse ones, then I completely agree. And I think TR is an excellent example. He displays multiple behaviours that most people consider bad, being a misogynist, racist and anti semite, while attempting to self sanitise by drawing attention to worse men who are rapists.
I'm sure that there are also individuals who believe themselves to be good people because they're not as bad as TR, but who are guilty of other forms of wrong.
My point is, that rather than seeking to legitimise extremism of any persuasion because we mistakenly see it as a means to fight another wrong, we should roundly condemn it all with no ifs and buts.
And please don't minimise the very serious stereotype about WC children I described as 'being rude about Raynor'. The journalist was not merely'rude' and the attack on Raynor was by no means the point i was highlighting.
The journalist described a group of WC teen girls as 'obsessed with shagging'. Did the implication of that pass you by? Because I find your reduction of it surprising if you have fully thought that one through in a context of a discussion on child sexual exploitation.
I strongly disagree she is not as bad as the officials in the grooming gang who failed to protect WC girls. This stereotype, sexualisation and blame of girls was a huge part of the problem.

The Casey report made very clear that one of the reasons the grooming gangs were enabled was a desire to avoid being seen as racist or a desire to avoid stirring discontent

That was only a very small part of it though, and the Casey report didn't say it was the major factor. This matters a lot because if you look at the details of police behaviour for example there was an enormous amount of complicity. I am sure it is convenient for them to hide behind "we couldn't do any because we was so scared of being called racists". If you zoom out further and look at the history of places like rochdale you see there's a very long pattern of institutional sex offending being ignored by the police, including the police discouraging people coming forward as adults from making formal complaints. In one case on one family a boy was groomed and abused by the paedophile gang operating at the boys school while his sister was later abused by the Rochdale grooming gangs. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-29042597

I'm not bringing this up as a case of "whataboutery". It was the exact same pattern of abuse cover up by the exact same police force and probably the same individuals. The absolute best case scenario is there was a culture of ignoring child sexual exploitation. Worst case is something darker. But, while I agree the ethnic dimensions of the Rochdale grooming gang scandals is something that should be looked at, I think thanks to SYL and friends the pendulum has swung to far the other way. And now the only thing people care about is the narrative that "the police were scared of being called racists" which is bad because any chance to fix the culture, to uproot the problem, to put in additional safety standards is lost. I've even heard people saying the police should "be focusing on Asian gangs" which makes it a great time to be a non Asian paediphile I guess. But people don't care, they just want to score political points and any wider examination or discussion would distract from that.

I’m not quite sure if we are agreeing or not.

My point is that it’s far too easy to look at the ‘other side’ and see all the bad intent, because you will never lose friends by being rude about TR.

And to look af the ‘reasonable people’ and see only missed opportunities by no one quite in particular, even when that has led to catastrophic harm and the evidence points to something much more craven.

The Casey report made very clear that one of the reasons the grooming gangs were enabled was a desire to avoid being seen as racist or a desire to avoid stirring discontent (or, in my view, losing votes). That’s an agenda every much as clear as TR’s. It’s just as self-serving.

There are I’m sure many many different examples (I’m picking the gangs only because it’s the obvious parallel to use for TR)

I think very many of the people who took and take those decisions were ‘bad guys’. Far more than a journalist who was rude about Rayner.

Yes. They lost the debate at that point. Shameful really. If they had someone better talking then it would at least been a more balanced argument.

There were systemic failures to protect those girls. As has historically been the case for women and girls, particularly those from lower socio economic backgrounds.
We live in a society where women, girls and those without privilege are judged, scorned and disbelieved when it comes to male crimes against them, as countless women failed by the CJS will testify.
Is our society responsible for spreading agendas, hyperbole and misinformation about WC women and girls? Yes. (I recall some right wing journalists a few months ago putting out an awful piece targeting Angela Raynor, where she stereotyped WC girl children in an extremely harmful way, including calling them 'obsessed with shagging')
Is our society responsible for condoning hate based violence against women and girls? Given its a national epidemic no one appears able to fix, it's looking that way.
So in my reckoning we have on one hand the 'bad guys' who actively seek to harm others on the grounds of their sex, race, religion, ethnicity, class, who sometimes excuse their harm of one group by pretending its to protect another. TR is clearly in this category. There may be officials who failed the girls who also were.
On the other, we have the 'good guys' who don't want to harm anyone, and this is the group who's voices need amplifying.

I'm no Tommy Robinson fan, but no-one came across as badly as that Aisha lass smugly declaring he was lucky about the security or her co-religionists outside would have killed him for suggesting Islam isn't a religion of peace.

I'm completely aware and I think it's appalling. Anyone who takes cocaine gets very short shrift from me. My point was that it's not worth mentioning in relation to TR specifically. It isn't relevant when discussing his behaviour or his opinions. At least no more relevant than it is for virtually everyone who works in media/ TV/film/theatre and is part of that north London 'champagne socialist' set. And probably half the MPs in Westminster.

The people who should have been doing calm evidence-based analysis of the grooming gangs, for example, were far too busy worrying about looking bad.

They brought their agendas and misinformation, and thousands of girls were avoidably raped as a result.

Is TR a purveyor of agendas, hyperbole and misinformation? Yes absolutely. Is he responsible for condoning hate-driven violence? Yes. Has he done his best to pervert justice? Yes.

More than the 'good guys' did, over decades, in that case? I'm really not so sure. What's your accounting of it?