After Tommy Robinson was released from prison this week, his cheerleader Raheem Kassam was interviewed on Radio 4’s Today programme. Martha Kearney raised Robinson’s violent criminal record, his insidious “warning”, as English Defence League leader, to all Muslims after terrorist attacks. With facts and tough questions, Kearney sought to unpick the persona of “citizen journalist” Honest Tommy.

Yet many have argued that the BBC should not host Kassam at all. To interview him or Robinson or Steve Bannon, with whom both are working to build a trans-European far-right movement, is to legitimise hatred, normalise fascism and draw Islamophobia into the mainstream.

It would be great never to see again the veneered smile of Robinson: the football thug and mortgage fraudster, too thick or arrogant to