These are factors that apply to all defendants. Connolly was not special.
She painted herself into a terrible corner legally. If she said she didn’t mean it, it was an admission to guilt. If she admitted racial incitement, she would get a much tougher sentence again. If she didn’t admit and went to trial she would have faced an even worse sentence for even longer when convicted.
If Connolly had just been an ordinary woman who had a momentary lapse of reason as she claims now, she might have got a non custodial sentence assuming the judge used their discretion.
But she was not. Connolly had used x in the past to convey her dislike of immigrants. This went beyond an exchange of views. When inciting racial hatred, the law will look at the motivations of the offender. One way to establish that legally is to look at whether that person already had a history of similar views or a membership of a group thapromoted similar views. She did and was. Unambiguously because she had put it on the internet.
At a point of intense online speculation, she then posted incendiary views. She wished for deportation and arson resulting in death. Said in her kitchen, no one would have cared. It would have been her private if hateful view. But online, it broadcast itself over and over again.
Connolly deleted her tweet and said it was a mistake. But by then the damage was done: she had broadcast her view about violence on a minority group protected in law.
What did for Connolly was her reference to arson and burning migrants alive. That is not a political view. It is hatred. Had she stopped at deportation she might have had an argument it was a political view albeit an extreme one. But she did not do that. She admitted to an offence where your intention is explicitly considered and she provided the detail of burning. It is this that got her in prison. Sentence is according to harm done or intended. Her intentions were clear. She now claims otherwise, but she lied. The Court of Appeal are not fools.