Zack, Trevor and the Bad Enoch

The whole gamut of Britain’s right-wing media was on display this weekend as key politicians were smeared and attacked ahead of the elections at the end of the week. Kemi Badenoch, Trevor and Melanie Phillips, and Helen Whately were out in full force.

What we are seeing is a further descent into authoritarianism as two parties joined at the hip outdo each other to weaponise the very real problem of antisemitism to undermine democracy and the right to protest.

Here Helen Whately, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions of the United Kingdom, begins to speak about the very act of marches themselves being a ‘process of radicalization’ while simultaneously saying “I want a tolerant society” but it becomes quickly clear she wants repression of protest opposing genocide and tolerance of her allies on the far-right (despite weirdly many of them espousing virulent antisemitism):

‘On the basis of that logic, would you ban Tommy Robinson’s rally?’
@Lewis_Goodall pushes the Tories’ Helen Whately for ‘consistency’ as the party calls for a ban on pro-Palestine ‘hate marches’. pic.twitter.com/Ze9REOawZ4

— LBC (@LBC) May 3, 2026

Her leader Kemi Badenoch was also confused and confounded by the hypocrisy, but when confronted by the obsequious Laura Kuenssberg, she opts, like Whately, to protect the far-right:

“There is something very specific happening to Jewish communities”

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says she supports a moratorium on pro-Palestinian marches but not for the march led by far-right activist Tommy Robinson later this month#BBCLauraK https://t.co/CkTHGctZ4k pic.twitter.com/HexVzNwr4m

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) May 3, 2026

That we are in the position of a black woman supporting Tommy Robinson marches is a testimony to where we are. But it’s also worth noting Laura Kuenssberg urging her on saying at one point that the words Globalise the Infitada and From the River to the Sea “Should be outlawed as the Prime Minister has suggested…” (2:36).

Today, Kemi Badenoch claimed that Tommy Robinson marches don’t create an atmosphere of violence and intimidation.

I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life.

You don’t see this at the pro-Palestine peace marches.

pic.twitter.com/UegurBy4il

— Wokerati Marty (@WokeratiMarty) May 3, 2026

Zack Attack

Next up was Zack Polanksi, who had been heavily criticised for his comments about the police handling of the attacker at Golders Green in which three people were attacked.

Polanski apologised on Friday for “sharing a tweet in haste” after he reposted a message on X accusing officers of “repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by Taser”. The incident escalated when his repost was criticised at the time by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who accused Polanski of amplifying “inaccurate and misinformed commentary” in a letter published by the force.

Pressed on whether he believed the police were heavy-handed, Polanski told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: “I was very concerned by what I saw and I remain concerned.”

It was in this context that Trevor Phillips interviewed Polanski for SKY News on Sunday morning.

But, as Paul Holden author of The Fraud, writes there’s a background to all of this which is worth knowing about:

“Phillips’ interview with Zack Polanski is problematic on its own terms but absolutely  if you know the full, ugly story of Trevor Phillips and the Labour Party. Buckle up, this is a long and depressing story. Phillips was suspended and put under investigation for alleged Islamophobia by the Labour Party. His suspension was lifted out of the blue – a week before he got his Sunday Politics gig where he would be interviewing Labour politicians. Later disclosures show that Alex Barros-Curtis MP played a central role in revisiting the investigation under pressure from unnamed “stakeholders.”

“The story of his suspension being lifted soon leaks to the Guardian. The Labour Party goes mad trying to find the leaker. They end up blaming and suspending two BAME members of staff, neither of whom the Party, in the end, can prove leaked the story. One of the people suspended is the only Muslim person in the Labour Party’s disciplinary unit. It is effectively the end of their Labour Party careers. Now the kicker: the Guardian had been leaked the story during the Batley & Spen by-election, which, if Starmer loses, is predicted to led to a leadership challenge. Starmer is under threat in Batley because large numbers of Muslim voters are abandoning the Labour Party. Labour ends up winning by tiny margin, saving Starmer’s leadership. But the Guardian holds the story for three weeks. The Guardian only publishes the story two days AFTER the by-election. Would the result have been different if this story was published during a by-election where Islamophobia was a key concern? I don’t know. I am absolutely certain that voters in Batley & Spen should have known about this at the time. Now five years later: Alex Barros-Curtis is an MP after a ham-fisted “selection” during 2024 General Election. Trevor Phillips is batting away Polanski talking about his own perspective as a Jewish person. And Starmer and his Party respond to a horrific antisemitic attack by claiming its catalysed by marches against Israeli war crimes, decaying language even as they continue to supply weapons and F-35 parts to Israel even as its killed 800 Gazans since the “ceasefire” and annexing large parts of Lebanon. This whole political and media class needs to get in the bin.”

As this whole public debate plays out, dominated by the big guns of the print and broadcast media, the tensions between ‘free speech’ and ‘hate speech’ are tested (and contested). It’s noteworthy that the far-right & libertarian gang (Toby Young, Brendan O’Neill and Co) you normally hear so much from are studiously silent.

As Peter Oborne pointed out six years ago about Phillips then suspension from the Labour Party [Trevor Phillips row: Islamophobia is no laughing matter | Middle East Eye]:

“This brings me to the subtext of the Phillips story. It’s simple: Islamophobia – hatred or mockery of Muslims – should be treated in a completely different way to antisemitism.”

“The logic of The Times, and to be fair almost every other Fleet Street paper, is that mockery of Muslims can and must be defended on free speech grounds, as part of the British public discourse.”

“That is the agenda behind this week’s row about the Phillips’ suspension. It finally brings out into the open one of the most perplexing features of Britain today: that one set of rules governs public discourse around Muslims, while there is a different set for everyone else.”

Next, we had Trevor Phillips interviewing Stephen Flynn:

Let’s find out. pic.twitter.com/LVzgtSmpfQ

— Stephen Flynn MP (@StephenFlynnSNP) May 3, 2026

Viewers of SKY News might like to have been informed that Phillips is on the advisory board of These Islands the Unionist lobby group [Advisory Council]. How on earth can it be appropriate for a board member of such a group to be presenting as an impartial journalist?

Platform Culture

But then, this weekend also saw Melanie Phillips given a platform to spout her views on SKY News, suggesting Zack Polanski was ‘inciting hatred’. And this from a woman who had been cited in Anders Breivik’s manifesto:

Thankfully, Mick Lynch was on hand to try and insert some rationality into the outpourings from Phillips:

Mick Lynch “Zack Polanski isn’t inciting hatred for Jews he believes he is an agent of peace and that Israel is carrying out Mass Murder in Gaza and the West Bank, and I believe that too.”

When Mick Lynch speaks sense, he speaks sense. pic.twitter.com/73eUMh4dDf

— BladeoftheSun (@BladeoftheS) May 3, 2026

Taken together the whole range of attacks and smears is overwhelming. I don’t think it’s coordinated; it doesn’t have to be. We talk a lot about ‘cancel culture’ but platforming people with very extreme views becomes normalised because they’re just part of the furniture. It’s worth remembering that in November 2010, The Spectator and Phillips apologised, and agreed to pay substantial compensation and legal costs to a prominent British Muslim they falsely accused of anti-Semitism [Halliday, Josh (25 November 2010). “The Spectator apologises for falsely accusing Muslim of antisemitism”. The Guardian. Retrieved 27 September 2019.]

The following year, she resigned from the magazine after it apologised, and paid compensation, for another of her pieces which, it said, contained an allegation that was “completely false” [Greenslade, Roy (28 June 2011). “Why Melanie Phillips quit The Spectator”. The Guardian. London. Retrieved 4 May 2013. ]  the New Statesman reported The Spectator paid compensation and costs of “tens of thousands of pounds”.

Phillips has become too expensive for many mainstream newspapers to publish but regularly appears on the BBC and SKY. That such an extreme character has such profile is testimony to the complete failure of media regulation and the dangerous cultures being cultivated in Late Britain. The whole farrago is not just a condemnation of our media but an insight into which the Uniparty is united around a commitment to draconian law, criminalising dissent and explicit Islamophobia. As Paul Holden said: “This whole political and media class needs to get in the bin.”