A uniquely British sense of justice

On May 25, human rights activist and journalist Tommy Robinson (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) was arrested while live-streaming at a trial of accused sex-traffickers. He was literally grabbed off the street by seven police officers; thrown in a van; and carted off to a waiting courtroom and judge, where he was sentenced to 13 months – a dangerous sentence, considering the prison population and his forthright stand against abuse of young girls by predominantly Muslim rape gangs. The whole process took approximately four hours and went forward without Robinson having his own counsel present. He has since been transferred to different prisons and has remained in solitary confinement as the only means to prevent an attempt on his life in these prisons.

In mid-June, his family, with help from friends, hired attorneys to act for him – who filed an appeal, asking for bail to be set and a re-hearing. Today we learn that this long awaited appeal hearing has been canceled. No, Robinson isn't the holdup. After all, he's been ready to have his side heard since May 25. Nope. The Crown counsel is not "ready." The counsel needs "more time to prepare." This is remarkable. It took these people a mere four hours to whisk the man off the public sidewalk in front of the Leeds public courthouse and throw him unceremoniously into one of Her Majesty's prisons. Maybe they should have allowed time for him to "prepare" – meaning at least get his own lawyer into the courtroom. But sentencing a man to 13 months in a dangerous prison seems a minor thing. To this date, Robinson has involuntarily spent 40 days of his life in solitary confinement in one or another of these wretched English prisons on the strength of a one-sided prefab arrest and conviction. I guess that means it's much, much easier to prepare a case to convict and imprison a man than to argue a case that it was justified in the first place. Apologists for the government are eager to inform us that we just don't understand the British system of justice. Robinson, they tell us, really did break the law. He shouldn't have been there, reading the names of defendants from the already published list from the BBC. The people are supposed to be kept in the dark. After all, this is the only way to keep order in such a thoroughly corrupt country. We would never accept this from the old Soviet Union, or from China, Iran, or North Korea. But somehow, because we sort of share a language, we are expected to sanction the same behavior in Britain. This case also points directly to the vile caste system that has always plagued England. There are distinct classes there. Tommy Robinson clearly belongs to the class of nobodies labeled "working class." He is in the same class as the little girls who have been trafficked as sex slaves and their distraught parents and siblings – in other words, the class those who govern the country regard as worthless. Their lives simply don't matter. As long as those who rule the nation can take all the time off they need to refresh themselves at some Lake District estate or "Downton Abbey," what difference could it possibly make that some working-class wife is left on her own to cope or a few working-class kids have to do without their dad for maybe another 40 days or maybe another 400 days? Who cares? When a nation's rulers can simply shrug off the destruction of young girls' lives just because they are "lower-class," that nation no longer can claim to have enough character to continue to exist. We found this in Bourbon France and Romanov Russia. America had the exceptional spine and good sense to throw off British rule when Americans were regarded as "second-class" citizens. We must hope for the English that when they have finally had enough of parallel justice and the obnoxious caste system that has persisted there, they will find a solution that brings justice and not just a bloody backlash. None of this need happen. One wishes that the British government could be wiser and more just and realize that it is unreasonable and irresponsible to keep demanding acquiescence of its citizens. A people of normal intelligence and with any spirit can abide only so much. If I were of the "esquire" class in Britain, I think I would have my bags packed and my ticket in hand. No need to stay – Britain is finished as a first-world nation. It has entered the ranks of tin-pot banana republics and serfdoms. A sad end.