Tommy Robinson has vowed to sue Sky News after releasing footage which he claims proves that recent headlines about him not caring if he incites fear of Muslims are based on misquotes and deceptive editing.
“[The] headline that’s gone all around the world says that Tommy Robinson says he doesn’t care if he — as in me — incites fear against Muslims,” the anti-grooming gangs campaigner begins in his YouTube video, referring to a Sky News exclusive titled “Tommy Robinson: I don’t care if I incite fear of Muslims”, which has been repeated throughout the British and international press.
“A lot of people asked why I sat down with Sky News. I sat down with Sky News to expose them. I knew what they was going to do [sic], they’ve done it to me for years — but I wanted you, the public, to see that,” he explained.
“All of the [mainstream media outlets] said that I don’t care if my message incites fear against Muslims. If you look at the report that Sky News put out, Jason Farrell puts a voiceover before he shows me answering a question.
“In the voiceover he leads the public to believe that he’s asked me about my opinions causing fear into Muslims [sic], and then he cuts and edits an answer I give to a completely different question that’s completely out of context, so it makes it look like I’m answering the question that he’s put in his voiceover, and it has me saying that I don’t care if it instils fear, so long as it prevents the rape of young children,” claims Robinson.
“Now, when you see in context what I’m talking about, what I was actually talking about was an educational video that was in Holland that was put out in schools to educate young girls against the manipulative way that Muslim men in Holland, Moroccan men, were grooming young victims. So it’s educational so the children could see the tell-tale signs,” he continues.
“We were talking about a video, not about me, or my views, [it was] nothing to do with my views — a video, and I said I don’t care if it incites fear.
“Because of the way they’ve cut and edited it, and then when you look at their headline… ‘Tommy Robinson says I don’t care if I incite fear’ — I didn’t say the word ‘I’, I said ‘it’; I didn’t say the word ‘incite’, I said ‘incites’,” he claims.
“They’ve actually changed two words, took letters off of both words, which completely change the context of what I said. It makes it look like I’m talking about my views, which I wasn’t… they’ve changed the words,” he alleges.
“This is ultimate fake news, and it’s gone all around the globe… I sat down with them, to show you this.”
Robinson then reveals that he had his cousin “secretly record the entirety of our conversation”, allowing him to show his followers “everything that happened… and you will see that the headline you’ve read today in every newspaper, by all the journalists, they’ve changed the words and they’ve completely changed the context.”
“They think you, the public, are that stupid that they can lie, manipulate, and change, and put their narrative into any story they want, to make you think a certain way about people and their opinions,” he accuses.
Robinson’s recording of the interview segment where the “incites fear” comments does appear to show that it centres on a Dutch grooming awareness video titled Loverboy, with his exchange why Jason Farrell unfolding as follows:
Tommy Robinson: “If you go to Holland, they actually created an educational video to be shown in schools, to warn children about these crimes. When they tried to show that in Britain, in 2007, the British establishment would not allow that video to be shown because, like you, [they] just go ‘Ooh, it’ll incite racial hatred’.”
Jason Farrell: “But it’s gonna incite fear to suggest that, when you also know that there are, like the group in Bristol, white paedophiles–”
Tommy Robinson: “Do you know what? I’ll be honest with you: I don’t care if it incites fear, so long as it educates the children and prevents them being raped. OK?”