Mad Right-Wing YouTuber Alex Belfield Banned by YouTube for Two Weeks

A day or two ago Alex Jones, the right-wing host of the Voice of Reason channel on YouTube, was handed a temporary ban for two weeks. At first it was thought that he’d been banned for three months, but Andy the Gabby Cabby, another YouTuber sympathetic to Belfield, has cleared that up. He’s been in communication with him, and apparently he’s only been suspended for a fortnight, but it was because he had already had two strikes against him within a three month period before suffering the third complaint resulting in his suspension. The Blackbelt Barrister, a YouTube legal expert, has also weighed in on the case. Citing expert legal opinion on the 2003 Information Act, the Barrister states that, in the opinion of the judicial authorities, the Act should only be used against communications that physically threaten a person’s safety or which stir up racial hatred. They should not be used to chill personal opinion or censor offensive views, even if those views make someone feel uncomfortable.

This is fine, but I don’t think Belfield has actually been charged with anything under the Act. Belfield has been banned from YouTube because it’s a private company, as are the other internet platforms. As private companies they are quite within their rights to set their own terms and conditions and restrict what may be said on them. The right got very upset about all this a few years ago when they started being censored for issues like misogyny, homophobia, racism, transphobia and so on. Left-wingers, however, pointed out that this was simply private industry acting as a private company and not in the public interest. They also pointed out how ironic it was this had happened to the right, who are staunch supporters of private companies against state-owned industries. There were even demands from some that the government should set up a nationalised internet platform to allow a proper exchange of views without censorship. Which would be really ironic considering that the right is worried about government censorship and attacks on free speech rather than that by powerful corporations.

So what brought about Belfield’s ban? Well, it seems from another post by the Gabby Cabby that it was a complaint against Belfield by Carol Vorderman because of his comments about her ‘assets’. The Cabby stated it was unclear whether this was about her property, or something rather more personal. Quite.

Belfield has regularly criticised the former Countdown star along with a number of other celebrities including Katie Price and Philip Schofield. This includes comments on her home or homes as well as more personal remarks about how she has apparently enhanced her bosom to retain the attention of the jaded public. He’s satirised her as a character ‘Carol Vordernorks’ in drag with fake breasts and a thick Brummie accent. I’ve never found this to be funny and it’s really just personal abuse. My sympathies in this instance are very firmly with Vorderman. I don’t know her, but she’s always come across as perfectly genial and polite on TV, and is herself an extremely intelligent woman. Not only does she have a degree in engineering from Oxford, but she’s also a pilot and a patron of the air cadets. She’s also active trying to get more people, especially girls, into science and flight, and has done her bit supporting the RAF. I really don’t know what Belfield has against her, as it doesn’t seem like there’s the same kind of personal feud he apparently has with the BBC and its producers, and the presenter Jeremy Vine, which have seen him involved in a legal battle over the past few years.

Belfield himself has thanked YouTube for paying for his house and giving him a livelihood, and claims his shows about the country are now sold out. He states that he will come back, but is going to launch a ‘secret VOR channel’ on the 28th of this month. This seems to confirm rumours that he’s about to vanish behind a paywall.

Belfield has some very right-wing views, some of which I regard as particularly dangerous. Like his demands that the NHS should be privatised, although in a video he made shortly before he was banned he urged people not to give to the NHS, because this would tell Johnson that we can be charged, ‘and then we’re all f***ed’. I wonder what he thinks will happen if he gets his way and the NHS is privatised. I am well aware that there are members of this blog who heartily despise Belfield. I watch some of his videos because he says openly what the rest of the right doesn’t, but who share his attitudes. And I do share his opposition to the transgender craze, but not trans people, which is causing real suffering to mentally and emotionally vulnerable young people. I firmly believe that some youngster are being misdiagnosed and put on a long course of medical treatment and physical transformation predominantly for ideological reasons and against their best interests. Some of the children now identified as transgender seem to be gay and come from extremely homophobic backgrounds, so it looks like a form of gay conversion therapy. This can be compared to the situation in Iran, where gays are given the choice of transitioning to the opposite sex or execution. I realise that such gender critical views are controversial, but the science behind them, to this layman’s eyes, seems solid. There is considerable censorship of such views, including threats and personal violence. Therefore, on this score, I support Belfield for posting against the transgender craze even if I find some of his other views mistaken, offensive and dangerous.

And rather than seeing anyone banned, I would prefer that people instead showed their opposition by blogging against them and winning arguments. I would rather have this done to make their views unpopular rather than censorship.

Because there are too many attempts already to censor what we can say with the Tories doing their best to outlaw public demonstrations against their monstrous policies.

Hope Not Hate Ask For Contributions in Legal Battle against Tommy Robinson – And Why I’m Not Contributing

I have had a couple of emails from the anti-racism/ anti-religious extremism organisation Hope Not Hate over the past few days asking if I would like to donate to their legal fund to fight Tommy Robinson, former head of the EDL, Pegida UK, jail bird, mortgage fraudster, and former member of the BNP. He’s a violent islamophobe with convictions for assault. His modus operandi in dealing with his online critics has been to dox them to his followers, leave the information up for a few hours, and then tell everyone he doesn’t want them touched or abused after this has no doubt happened. He also turns up to his critics’ homes, or those of their elderly parents in the middle night with a few of his thugs demanding to have a few words. One of his minions is the war criminal Avi Yemeni, an Australian-Israeli. Yemeni claims to have shot an unarmed Palestinian protester during his time in the IDF, and talks like he’s proud of it. Robinson also turned up at the home of Mike Stuchbery, a teacher, in the middle of the night, loudly insinuating that he was paedophile. This is pure invention, but nevertheless it led to Stuckbery leaving his job and moving to Germany.

A year or so ago Robinson was sued for libel for lawyers acting on a behalf of a Syrian refugee schoolboy, who had suffered a violent racial assault and bullying at school. Robinson, despite the evidence, immediately took the opposite view and decided that the lad’s White English assailant was really the victim. He interviewed him and put up the interview on YouTube. The Syrian lad and his lawyers won the case, and the beak ordered Robinson to pay £100,000 in costs and damages. Robinson has refused, pleading bankruptcy. Which is why Hope Not Hate are writing to me and others.

They’re not convinced Robinson is bankrupt, and are appealing to their supporters for funds so they can sue him and prove otherwise. Now as you might have gathered from the above description of Tommy Robinson’s sordid political career, I have no sympathy for him. In fact, I think he’s a counterproductive menace. He was jailed several times for contempt of court for his citizen coverage of the trials of Muslim grooming gangs. Except he broke all the rules real journalists have to follow to ensure that everyone gets a fair trial. He talked as if they were already proven guilty. This is dangerous, because if they were, but could claim that they didn’t get a fair trial thanks to Robinson’s reportage, they could get off.

But I have a problem with this, and with Hope Not Hate’s friends and allies. They’re connected to the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, the Israel lobby organisation that was deeply involved in the witch hunt against supposed anti-Semites in the Labour party. Except those they accused of anti-Semitism were simply followers and supporters of Corbyn and campaigners and supporters of the Palestinians, who were overwhelmingly genuine, principled anti-racists and opponents of anti-Semitism. A very high proportion of the victims of this witch hunt are Jews. They are five times more likely to be accused of anti-Semitism as gentiles. As I keep banging on about again and again, many of them have suffered real anti-Semitic abuse and violence, and have been threatened with further violence after these smears.

I am concerned about the safety of these victims of the smears, and especially Mike, from legal persecution. The Israel lobby uses lawfare – legal action – to shut down its critics. This was powerfully shown in the YouTube video Mike did with other victims of the witch-hunt to mark the release of a film refuting the Panorama claim that Labour was rife with anti-Semitism. I am also very concerned about how such legal actions, like the one Hope Not Hate wishes to bring against Tommy Robinson, will affect Mike.

As you know, Mike is currently in a legal battle with Rachel Riley, Countdown numbers person, who is suing him for libel. It’s a thoroughly unfair battle, as Riley is a rich woman – forget all that bilge from her oppo Tracey-Ann Oberman about jobbing actors. Mike, like the rest of us, is just an ordinary bloke with a limited income, and carer for missus Mike. He has been forced to rely on crowdfunding to help fund his battle. Riley and her expensive lawyers have attempted to stop this. They have also enquired how much money he has and whether this will make it worth their while to sue him. Her followers have also shown themselves to be deeply unpleasant, vicious people. They have gloated over the prospect of Mike being left bankrupt and homeless, looking forward to him losing the case and having to sell his house to pay her damages.

Riley and Oberman and their supporters have shown themselves in their conduct to be nothing but litigious thugs in my view. I am deeply concerned that if Hope Not Hate uses this tactic against Tommy Robinson, the same tactics will also be used against Mike, and every other genuine anti-racist Riley or someone like her chooses to sue.

In normal circumstances I would have no hesitation in helping Hope Not Hate sue Robinson. I have considerable respect for the work they have done exposing and fighting genuine Nazis, White supremacists and Islamists.

But because of their connections to the militant Zionist witch hunters and smear merchants I cannot do so because of the danger this poses to decent people, simply because they support Corbyn, the Palestinians or the people who have been falsely accused.

I must therefore decline and strongly encourage others to think twice before contributing to their legal campaign.

How Vindictive! Riley’s Lawyer Wrongly Accuses Mike of Having Hidden Income

Mike put up a post earlier this week revealing that latest depth Rachel Riley and her lawyers have sunk in their determination to prosecute him for telling the world the truth about her and her mate Tracy Anne Oberman hounding and attacking a schoolgirl. They accused the girl, who suffers from anxiety, of anti-Semitism because she had the temerity to be a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. When the girl refused to meet them, the pair’s supporters piled in to insult and intimidate the girl in what looked to many people to be orchestrated by the two. Mike correctly reported this on his blog, and so has been sued for libel by Riley, despite the fact that the Queen of Countdown was unable to dispute the facts or actually tell Mike what was libellous about the article when he asked her. It appears she lets her lawyers do all her thinking in these matters.

The judge has, unfortunately, ruled in Riley’s favour in what I believe is a profoundly mistaken decision. Mike’s appealing, obviously. This has been a massively unfair battle from the start, as Riley is, by anyone’s reckoning, a rich woman. Ordinary folks like the rest of us certainly don’t have the moolah to retain the services of expensive lawyers like her. Mike, on the other hand, has nothing. Zip, zilch, nada. And this, it seems, is a source of irritation to Riley’s lawyer, the noxious Mark Lewis. Because last week or thereabouts he put in a claim to the court that Mike had a hidden income. He was, he alleged, getting personally rich from the money Mike’s great supporters have donated to his Crowdjustice campaign.

Er, nope. As Lewis should know, Mike doesn’t personally handle any of the money that gets donated to his Crowdjustice account. He can’t under the rules of that organisation. It all goes to pay his lawyers. And any money that Mike might get from personal donations for his legal defence also goes there. He certainly isn’t living off his peeps’ donations. Mike has therefore instructed his lawyers to write a swift rebuttal to this false claim.

It really does make you wonder about the mentality and motives of Riley and her consigliore. I don’t know about anyone else, but to me it looks like sheer malice and vindictiveness, as well as greedy. It seems to me that Riley and her lawyers have made this claim from a desire to harass Mike anyway they can. It might also be an attempt to stop people giving to Mike by giving people the idea that Mike is somehow living the high life off their hard earned cash they’ve donated. It may also be due to Team Riley finding themselves unable to cope with the fact that, as Mike doesn’t have anything, they won’t be able to get richer through the damages they hope the judge awards them. Riley said in a previous Twitter spat with someone that she looked forward to suing them and all the money she’d obtain in damages, which she’d give to Jewish charities. This may not have been the wisest comment to post, as suing people for your own personal profit is supposedly against the rules, as Mike reminded his readers in a piece he posted about it.

Their accusation also makes you wonder about their own motives. Are they accusing Mike of what could be seen as the misappropriation of funds because that’s what they’d do in his circumstances? Surely not! But you end up wondering anyway.

Riley has come across to me throughout this whole, sordid affair as deeply unpleasant, personally spiteful and vindictive. And I believe that this apparent vindictiveness comes from a frustration that Mike and his great supporters have defied her for so long. Riley a metropolitan ‘sleb, you see, with friends in the meedja smart set, supporters in the press and fans throughout Britain. While Mike, she appears to have assumed, was merely a hick from mid-Wales. What could he possibly know or do? Big mistake. Mike always was an extremely good, conscientious journalist before he took to blogging and caring for Mrs Mike full-time. He had a very thorough understanding of the libel law, which is why he is astonished and dismayed by the judge’s decision.

Whatever their motives for making this false and malign allegation, Mike has shown he is well able to refute it. The only thing it has succeeded in doing is making Riley and Lewis look bad.