© Moritz Hager / ReutersFormer White House strategist Steve Bannon.
In an on-air discussion hosted by former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, political editor Theo Usherwood challenged Bannon on his belief that Tommy Robinson has "got to be released from prison."
Usherwood said that Robinson, who is serving a 13-month sentence for breaching reporting restrictions on a court case by live-streaming men entering Leeds Crown Court on Facebook, deserved to be jailed because he "broke the law." Bannon attempted to interject but Usherwood continued, telling the guest: "I'm calling you out on something..."
Farage then attempted to move the conversation on by agreeing with his LBC colleague. "I take the view as well, that Tommy broke the law," he said - but the the controversy would not end there.
Usherwood later tweeted about a lively and colourful exchange that took place after the show went off-air. Unhappy with the tone taken by the station's political editor during the discussion, Bannon made his feelings plain.
"Don't you f**king say you're calling me out. You f**king liberal elite. Tommy Robinson is the backbone of this country," he reportedly said.
Bannon's defenders complained that the exchange should have been 'off-the-record', a claim which Usherwood swiftly denied. "If he wanted the conversation to be off the record, he should have said," Usherwood tweeted.
Earlier this month, Bannon had told Politico that he was following US President Donald Trump to the UK "to be a surrogate on British media."
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has been a cause célèbre in the UK since he pleaded guilty to breaching reporting restrictions and was jailed earlier this year.
On Saturday, thousands of people attended a 'Free Tommy Robinson' and 'pro-Trump' rally in London. The crowd featured numerous people waving English, British and USA flags, as well as flags bearing the symbol of the nationalist Identitarian movement.
Reader Comments
R.C.
I told that to a female friend of mine, who is obviously into that sort of thing. A shudder went down her spine, and a goose ran over her grave.
There certainly are a lot of them. There's a Counting Crows song where lead guy Adam? D? sings the voice of his girlfriend saying to him: "And the word that you wanted was aluminium."
R.C.
What's the line on the nicks? LOL....[Link]
MI5 have always had their dirty little fingers in UK far-right and far-left groups, I don't see why EDL/Tommy Robinson would get an exemption.
Ananuvverfing: I don't know much about phrenology, but the head of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon AKA Tommy Robinson looks the spit of the head of William Joyce AKA Lord Haw-Haw....[Link]
"According to one of Joyce's biographers, Nigel Farndale, Joyce developed a relationship with an intelligence division within MI5, known as section B5(b), which was responsible for infiltrating extremist political groups, during his time in England. Given his close connections to Ireland, it seems plausible that he might have been very valuable in this regard, and Farndale claims to have discovered documents, recently released under freedom of information legislation, backing up this connection. Whether he provided any useful intelligence to B5(b) is unclear, but the strength of this relationship was sufficient that the head of MI5, Maxwell Knight (who was the inspiration and basis of the Ian Fleming character 'M' in the James Bond books), apparently tipped Joyce off about his imminent arrest. Joyce and his wife fled to Berlin on August 26, 1939, with Knight's assistance, just days before war was declared. When Special Branch agents arrived to arrest Joyce on September 1, he had already left the country using his British passport."
Spartacus Educational: Charles Maxwell Knight....[Link]