Charles Tansley

The gaslighting from Tommy Robinson’s supporters is extraordinary. They are trying to construct a narrative that journalists somehow endangered his children by photographing him at a well-known five-star luxury resort. How do you think those journalists knew where he was? Robinson had already been publicly documenting his luxury holiday, posting photographs from the resort on his own social media. In typical Tommy Robinson fashion, he is now using emotive language to weaponise his large and fanatical following to spread misinformation about what actually happened. The journalists simply published photographs similar to those Robinson had already published himself. They didn’t reveal his location or name the resort. They highlighted the extraordinary hypocrisy of a man safely enjoying a luxury five-star holiday in Cyprus while simultaneously using social media to encourage his followers in Britain to take to the streets and participate in protests that ultimately turned violent, resulting in numerous arrests. This is journalism. This is precisely why we need journalists: to expose the hypocrisy of these grifters who enjoy the luxury while encouraging ordinary working people to put themselves and their families at risk. And how did Robinson respond to journalists simply doing their jobs? He hired private investigators, photographed their homes and families, published identifying information to his millions of followers and threatened them. The consequences were journalists requiring security protection and, in one case, having to evacuate their family from their own home. This is why Tommy Robinson was convicted. Nothing more, nothing less.