From his experience with the far-right, Caolan Robertson argues their reaction to that assault on commentator Owen Jones proves they are happy to silence opponents when it suits them
When Owen Jones was violently attacked outside a London pub last year by three football hooligans, one of whom ‘karate kicked’ him in the back without warning, the response was disturbingly mixed. While many on the political left and the centre were justly horrified, there was a particularly disturbing and predictable response from much of the right.
On Telegram, the Russian app to which many far-right e-celebs have been exiled, comments and posts claiming Jones ‘had it coming’ or outright denying the attack happened were rife. Even now on Twitter, responses to a BBC tweet linking an article about the attackers’ sentencing include users calling him a ‘puff’, claiming that he ‘brought it upon himself’ and that he ‘should have been hit harder’.
James Healy, the man who led the attack was found to have been a member of a football hooligan ‘firm’ and to have kept neo-nazi group Combat 18 memorabilia at home. While this attack was clearly politically motivated, it’s also worth noting that one of Combat 18’s key tenets is ‘Kill all Queers’. Perhaps most concerning though, is not the actual violence from avowed neo-nazis, but rather the committed support for it from the much less radical sections of the right.
The right simply does not care about freedom of speech, or freedom of the press, or freedom of association or assembly or any other freedom that forms the basis of the Western democracy they profess to love so deeply.
On Telegram, the idols of the far-right such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Tommy Robinson and Gavin McInnes are vociferous in their insistence that free speech must be protected at all costs. But there is no clearer example of an attack on free speech than the brutal and ‘frenzied’ attack on Jones simply for his advocating left-wing ideals.
So why are so many on the right, even the ‘centre-right’ dismissing or even lauding what is essentially a shocking, appalling, affront to the very idea of free speech? Not since the murder of Jo Cox, a sitting MP, has such a blatant and frankly shameless act of political violence been met with such disregard from those who profess to nail their colours to the mast of ‘Western Values’.
News of Healy and his accomplices’ sentencing (two years and a suspended sentence of eight months respectively) comes at a time when the culture wars topic du jour is ‘cancel culture’. The timing could not be more pertinent. At this point, we must stop and ask ourselves which is the greater affront to freedom of speech and Western democratic ideals?
Certainly, the use of physical violence, of any kind, against a political opponent is a far greater threat to the ability of any person to speak freely than the possibility of losing a job, a book deal or some other professional commodity. We can debate whether cancel culture exists or not but all of its supposed impacts pale in comparison to actual violence. Yet the most outspoken advocates of free speech are not up in arms over this attack but at worst celebrated it and at best dismissed it completely.
Making Crime Pay for ‘Tommy Robinson’ How YouTube Rewards Violent Radicalisation
Hardeep Matharu and Peter Jukes
Thus their hypocrisy is laid bare for all but themselves to see. This is because they patently do not care about freedom of speech or Western democracy. Milo Yiannopoulos, the right-wing provocateur who artificially inflated his book sales, posted on the right-wing app Parler as recently as this week, declaring he doesn’t want to see less cancel culture but more of it, as long as it is those he disagrees with being cancelled.
Free Speech and Violence
Once upon a time, when I was much younger and vastly more stupid than I am now, I worked with Milo and this was very much his stance on politics. I also worked with ‘Tommy Robinson’ and many other content creators on the online right and can assure you that this attitude is not limited to Yiannopoulos. As the outtake from 2018 below reveals, Robinson’s latching onto the notion of ‘free speech’ was very much opportunistic and insincere.