Tommy Robinson: Convicted of Journalism and the Worst Hot Take About His Situation

Welcome to The Worst Take of the Week – a weekly column in which NEO, AKA @MULLET_FAN NEO, pits two of the wildest takes the world's great thinkers have rustled up against each other.

Take #1

What's the story? Tommy Robinson has been sentenced to nine months in prison for contempt of court.
Reasonable take: Interfering with court proceedings that could have seen defendants in a sexual exploitation trial walk free. This is extremely bad.
Brain rot: Literally: "I HAVE BEEN CONVICTED OF JOURNALISM. GREAT BRITAIN = NORTH KOREA."

Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was given a nine-month prison sentence (of which he will serve around ten weeks) after he was found guilty of being in contempt of court. Or, as Robinson put it on the front of the T-shirt he wore to the Old Bailey: "CONVICTED OF JOURNALISM".

The back of his shirt also sported the print "Britain = North Korea". Presumably "Magaluf Tour 2019" was also sewn onto the shoulder, although "what goes on in court, stays in court" might have been a more fitting choice of words.

Robinson should count himself lucky. If Britain were anything like North Korea, if reports are to be believed, he’d have been launched arse-over-tit from a howitzer cannon into a pool of ravenous sharks with a hankering for "enemies of the state" by now, yet he’ll probably end up in some fucking EDL prison wing where guards will be warmly shaking his hands and thanking him for his "sacrifice".

The Contempt of Court Act 1981 was created to ensure that nothing about an "active" criminal case can be published if it "creates a substantial risk that the course of justice in the proceedings in question will be seriously impeded or prejudiced". Hence why a judge has power to postpone reporting when a court is dealing with a series of criminal trials, to ensure the jury does not hear evidence that may be prejudicial to a fair trial.

Tinfoil hat Tommy, however, sniffed a cover-up as part of some agenda against the white, English Christian. Robinson said earlier this week he felt he was being "sentenced to death for journalism". And yet, as was stated in court on Thursday, it is actually for "aggressively confronting and filming" in breach of reporting restrictions, and "encouraging his followers to harass the defendants" as they entered Leeds Crown Court in May last year, accused of sexually exploiting young girls.

Two High Court judges ruled that Robinson was in contempt of court, and in the hearing it was revealed how, because of his actions, there were attempts by the paedophile gang to have the trial stopped on the basis that the jury could no longer reach a fair verdict. One of the accused even managed to get a hearing at the Court of Appeal that could have seen him freed.

There are credible methods of advocating about criminal justice issues; deliberately disobeying the law is not one of them, especially when the consequences would have fallen heavily on the young victims who'd have to go through the whole hellish experience again – or almost inconceivably, seen the charges against their abusers dropped and them walking free.

Robinson winked and flashed a V for victory sign at the public gallery during the sentencing. Good one, cunt. Enjoy the big fucking L.

Take #2

What's the story? Tory MP Michael Fabricant says "madness" is what is missing from Brexit.
Reasonable take: Madness is literally the only thing not missing from the Brexit negotiations.
Brain rot: The only thing that can sort out Brexit is a wildcard sociopathic leader!!!

This week, Tory MP Michael Fabricant said that "being sensible failed to get a good Brexit deal" and that what we really need for Brexit to be a success is "a little madness". Not the two-tone ska band Madness – however, I do think Suggs doing the skank to "House of Fun" in European parliament would probably have been more effective than anything these Tory cunts have managed in the last three years.

The Lichfield MP arrived at the conclusion that more unhinged bedlam was the antidote to our Brexit woes by recalling Margaret Thatcher’s threat to quit the EEC (forerunner to the EU) in 1980 over Britain’s high payments – a move that led to the bloc rebating Britain more than €5 billion.

Germany Chancellor Helmut Kohl and President Francois Mitterrand of France said at the time that they apparently bowed to the UK Prime Minister's demands because they thought Thatcher was "unpredictable and mad enough" to leave the EEC.

Fabricant recounts that President Mitterrand allegedly described Thatcher as "having the eyes of Caligula”, Rome’s most tyrannical emperor who declared himself a living god and wanted to make his horse a consul, but of having the "the mouth of Marilyn Monroe". Comparisons just too fucked up to even think about.

"Madness is a quality that impresses the EU. It’s an asset. Not a liability," insists Fabricant, sounding more and more like a Batman villain. His reflections about madness "being good" when it comes to the EU arrive just ahead of the Tory leadership announcement around a fortnight’s time, when we get our third non-democratically elected Prime Minister of the decade. The saviour to our alleged Brexit lunacy deficiency, Fabricant suggests, is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

Citing Guy Verhofstadt, the EU's parliamentary Brexit negotiator, has described Boris as "a man who continues to dissemble, exaggerate and disinform the public", and a perpetrator of "false promises, pseudo-patriotism and foreigner bashing". However, Fabricant argues that a "lack of logic" and "willingness to bend the rules" are characteristic of the EU, so it’s only logical they "fear negotiating with someone who is similarly disposed to negotiate irrationally".

Somehow we are a point in Brexit in which MPs are suggesting that lying to the public and being untrustworthy are actually good traits. Fair play to Tory Britain: you are absolutely on your arses.

Winner: "Brexit is missing madness" is a truly intergalactic opinion from Fabricant, but Robinson’s "CONVICTED OF JOURNALISM" T-shirt alone wins it for me.

@MULLET_FAN_NEO