What’s Donald Trump to do after normalizing the far-right in America? Start normalizing the far-right in the U.K.!
The president shined a spotlight on yet another anti-Muslim sensationalist on Wednesday by retweeting multiple videos from one of the wacky leaders of Britain First, an anti-immigrant group based in the U.K.
The now-deleted videos — titled “Muslim migrants beat up Dutch boy on crutches!“, “Muslim destroys statue of Virgin Mary!“, and “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!” — were originally shared by ultranationalist Jayda Fransen, whose other videos include her going on the streets of Britain with a big ol’ cross to provoke Muslims into some type of altercation.
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Fransen, who has been previously charged in the U.K. with “religious aggravated harassment,” was overjoyed by the free press POTUS brought to her page and party.
Screenshotting Trump’s retweets of her videos, she wrote:
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, DONALD TRUMP, HAS RETWEETED THREE OF DEPUTY LEADER JAYDA FRANSEN’S TWITTER VIDEOS! DONALD TRUMP HIMSELF HAS RETWEETED THESE VIDEOS AND HAS AROUND 44 MILLION FOLLOWERS! GOD BLESS YOU TRUMP! GOD BLESS AMERICA! OCS @JaydaBF @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/BiQfQkTra9
— Jayda Fransen (@JaydaBF) November 29, 2017
If the all caps caption wasn’t enough of an indication that this lady makes Alex Jones look like Dan Rather, some of her other videos will:
The Muslims of Luton claim they’ve taken our country from us! It seems my Christian cross really offends them! pic.twitter.com/KJOpzXBqDN
— Jayda Fransen (@JaydaBF) March 16, 2017
Well, we can’t say we’re surprised Fransen caught Trump’s attention — though several British officials were. Multiple British politicians reacted with outrage over Trump’s apparent endorsement of Britain First, which many locals consider to be a hate group.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said:
“Britain First is a vile, hate-fueled organization whose views should be condemned, not amplified.”
Too late for that. In fact, Fransen is already being interviewed by the BBC and CBS after being put under Trump’s spotlight. Ugh.
Labour Party lawmaker Chuka Umunna was one of the many politicians who demanded the British government rescind its invitation to Trump to visit the country, tweeting:
Donald Trump is promoting the propaganda of a racist far right group. His invite to visit the UK in 2018 should be immediately withdrawn. pic.twitter.com/kgjbrG4XxQ
— Chuka Umunna (@ChukaUmunna) November 29, 2017
As for the extreme content Trump retweeted, Britain’s Press Association found that most of the videos were originally shared without any context.
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According to the BBC, the video purporting to show a boy thrown off a roof was taken in Egypt in 2013. The video of a man destroying a Virgin Mary statue was posted to YouTube four years ago.
The video featuring a Dutch boy being attacked was shared to a Dutch website earlier this year. Two men were charged in connection with the incident, but no reports of the incident mentioned the religion of the assailants.
We hope this is the last we hear of Jayda Fransen and Britain First, but unfortunately this feels like only the beginning.
[Image via CNN/Twitter.]
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