Reform UK's Robert Jenrick has claimed there is a two-tier justice system when determining how courts treat anti-migrant protesters compared to illegal migrant criminals themselves, and it is hard to disagree with his assessment.
Del Somerville, 42, was sentenced this month to two years in jail for throwing a plastic bottle at police and behaving aggressively during an anti-migrant demonstration in Portsmouth. By comparison, asylum seeker Tadi Alemeyeha, 23, received just 18 months for sexually assaulting a woman in Manchester, and Muqbil Al Dhaheri, 36, who sexually assaulted a nurse in Chelmsford, was spared prison altogether.
Jenrick's warning on sentencing disparity
In a post on X, Mr Jenrick wrote: "Why is the British state punishing protesters harder than illegal migrants who break into our county and commit appalling crimes? Why do judges apply the principle of deterrence to sentencing protesters, and not to the illegal migrants who are terrorising women and girls across our country?"
The answer, according to the article, is that the Labour government and a left-leaning judiciary are determined to intimidate legitimate protesters into submission. When hardened criminals are being released early from jail, it makes no sense to use prison places for people who are simply protesting against out-of-control immigration. Protesters being frequently held on remand for months is another abuse of the justice system.
Protesters should not be in prison
None of these protesters are a threat to the public and should not be in prison at all – at the most being fined or given a suspended or community sentence. The state is abusing the law by delivering heavy sentences on Britons whose only crime is to object to boatloads of illegal migrants landing on our beaches. Dubbed "thugs", many of these protesters are ordinary family folk worried about the safety of their loved ones and the future of the country.
Even masked protesters at Dover and Portsmouth are no more guilty than militant masked Antifa activists in London's East End who seem to enjoy immunity from mainstream media criticism. One Left-wing newspaper editor compared them to "Black shirts" or "Brown shirts", making the lazy comparison with Nazis.
Cases of harsh sentences
Three Essex men who protested outside the Bell Hotel in Epping against migrant sex offenders got sentences ranging from two years and four months to one year 10 months – far longer than the 12-month sentence given to the illegal Ethiopian migrant who sexually assaulted a local 14-year-old girl.
Grandfather Peter Lynch, 61, went to demonstrate against a migrant hotel in Rotherham, shouted a few "provocative" remarks at police, and was sentenced to two years and eight months for violent disorder. Having suffered a recent heart attack and having diabetes, he was found dead in his cell at HMP Moorland, South Yorkshire. He should never have been in jail at all. He was not a danger to the public and was expressing his outrage at the dire situation.
Most notorious of all was the sentence of 31 months given to Lucy Connolly for an inflammatory tweet following the Southport murders. Anger at what now turns out to have been a state failure in monitoring a disturbed young man should not be unsurprising and should certainly not deserve incarceration. Connolly was not a threat to the wider public, but the government clearly wanted to intimidate anyone expressing support for the subsequent protests.
Call for urgent rethink
We can never condone violence, especially against the police, but when hardened criminals get lesser sentences than normally law-abiding citizens something is wrong. This Labour government fears legitimate anger at its inability to control illegal migration and is using every weapon it can to silence mainstream concern. Ministers don't like anyone who successfully challenges their ineptitude at protecting our frontiers.
As Mr Jenrick added: "This is why the British state has a legitimacy crisis. It exerts far more effort suppressing people's concerns about immigration than actually fixing it. Reform will ensure the British government actually serves the British people again."
Stamping on legitimate protest with heavy prison sentences is the path to totalitarianism. It is what fascist regimes do. Labour needs to urgently address the issues that are provoking ordinary family people into bravely standing up against a corrupt and two-tier immigration system that favours illegal migrants over patriotic Britons. Otherwise the growing sense of unfairness will only make the situation worse.
