Tommy Robinson – A Valiant Effort

It was a valiant campaign, hard-fought. But in the end, Tommy Robinson did not win the election to be a Member of the European Parliament from North West England.

I think one important reason is that Nigel Farage's new Brexit Party took a lot of votes from people upset with the status quo, who otherwise would have supported Tommy. And UKIP took some too.

But there was a much darker factor at play, too. Tommy has been de-platformed and un-personed by the UK political establishment:

• He was kicked off of Facebook and Twitter, where he had nearly 2 million followers combined.
• Another Silicon Valley tech giant, called Stripe, cut off credit card services from Tommy's campaign mid-way through the election.
• The Royal Mail - Britain's post office - simply refused to deliver Tommy's campaign brochures. That's illegal, but it happened.
• Police actively blocked Tommy's campaign events and turned a blind eye to violence against him and his supporters.
• The UK attorney general prosecuted Tommy for contempt of court, literally in the middle of the campaign.
• The UK mainstream media was as demonic towards Tommy as always.

That may sound like excuse-making. But if a political candidate cannot communicate by any means - not on the Internet, not by the mail, and not through normal media reports - how is it possible to win in 2019? Imagine Donald Trump without Twitter.

There were surely other factors afoot, too. But to me, the great lesson from Tommy's campaign is that once the establishment de-platforms you, they can attack you, and you can't fight back. They tried it out on Tommy; I wonder who they'll try it out on next.

Watch this 6 minute interview with the BBC here:

Watch all of TheRebel's Jessica Swietoniowski's reporting here: