YouTube has placed shocking new restrictions on Tommy Robinson’s channel, removing his videos from search results and prohibiting him from live-streaming to the platform.

In March 2019, YouTube defended their decision to keep Mr Robinson on its site as he “did not breach YouTube terms of use”.

Today’s ban comes after months of intense bullying from senior British MPs.

These new “restrictions” will mean Robinson’s new videos won’t have view counts, suggested videos, likes or comments. There’ll be an “interstitial” or black slate that appears before each video warning people that it might not be appropriate for all audiences.

Robinson will also be prevented from live-streaming onto his channel. Until now, he would do this regularly to reach his nearly 390,000 YouTube subscribers.

YouTube users will be able to access Robinson’s material only by clicking directly on a link for each video. The effect of the changes will be to make his videos undiscoverable.

“After consulting with third-party experts, we are applying a tougher treatment to Tommy Robinson’s channel in keeping with our policies on borderline content,” a YouTube spokesperson said.

“The content will be placed behind an interstitial, removed from recommendations, and stripped of key features including live-streaming, comments, suggested videos, and likes.”

In February, Facebook and Instagram removed Tommy Robinson’s pages from their platforms, followed by more than one million people.

To communicate with his fans, Robinson now sends out regular updates through email, and he announced recently he had set-up a new Snapchat account.

In March 2018, Mr Robinson predicted this would happen: