Peter Lynch was the victim of a vengeful, out-of-touch Prime Minister

Allison Pearson writing in the Telegraph

The 61-year-old grandfather, who has died in prison, was given an extremely harsh sentence for daring to question multiculturalism

Before he sentenced Lucy Connolly to 31 months in jail for distributing material with the intention of stirring up racial hatred, Judge Melbourne Inman said, “It is a strength (sic) of our society that it is both diverse and inclusive. There is always a very small minority of people who will seek an excuse to use violence and disorder causing injury, damage, loss and fear to wholly innocent members of the public, and sentences for those who incite racial hatred and disharmony in our society are intended to both punish and deter.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel at all happy that a judge thinks it’s his business to parrot Left-wing platitudes. Do all Britons really agree that it is a strength of our society that it is diverse and inclusive? Might some people be upset that the diversity the judge praises has led to the inclusion in our country of certain people whose values and behaviour are so grievously at odds with our own?

Bear in mind our prisons are so full that 1,100 prisoners were, today, released early; they included domestic abusers and violent criminals, but no incensed women tweeters.

Another extremely harsh sentence was imposed on Peter Lynch, a 61-year-old grandfather, who was part of a group that gathered outside a Holiday Inn hotel in Rotherham on August 4. He was jailed for nearly three years for shouting “racist and provocative remarks” at police and calling asylum seekers in the hotel “child killers”.

Tragically, Peter is thought to have taken his own life at the weekend, no doubt ashamed and shaken to the core by his punishment. Serious questions remain about what fate awaits anyone branded “far-Right” when they enter a prison with a high number of Muslim inmates.

Compare and contrast with Judge Inman’s sentencing of one Haris Ghaffar. The 19 year old, who pleaded guilty to violent disorder, was part of a mob that stormed a Birmingham pub in August after incorrect rumours that members of the disbanded English Defence League were planning to “target the Muslim community”. Ghaffar, who wore a balaclava, tried to kick down the door of The Clumsy Swan where terrified customers and staff had barricaded themselves inside.

(It will be interesting to see if Victoria Thomas Bowen, the young woman who threw a milkshake at Nigel Farage during the general election campaign, gets a custodial sentence after admitting to “assault”.

Who knows, maybe incitement to violence is only a thing when the victim isn’t white and privately-educated?)

Were Lucy Connolly and Peter Lynch really “far-Right thugs”? Or, were they ordinary Britons driven to extreme and angry behaviour by the horrific slaughter of Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven, Bebe King, aged six, and nine year old Alice da Silva Aguiar? (Lucy Connolly lost a small child of her own 12 years ago, and I have no doubt that deep personal anguish played a part in her lashing out.)

There is a reason why those three darling names have dropped out of public consciousness, even after the worst attack on little girls enjoying themselves since the suicide bomber Salman Abedi caused carnage at an Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena. Just as there is a reason, let me suggest, why the trial of their alleged attacker has been put back to late next year. We can only marvel at the speed with which the criminal justice system swings into action when ordinary people transgress against the accepted elite narrative of tolerance and harmony.

It seems to me that our political class is increasingly aware that its multicultural project is in big trouble.

The only way they can keep a lid on feelings which threaten to boil over is to double down, brutally hard, on anyone who dares object to events which simply should not be happening here in the UK. Events which we know in the core of our being are not British. Events like the senseless, savage murder of three beautiful little girls.

There is nothing “extremist” or “far-Right” about the sorrow and utter horror occasioned by that vile event. It was a perfectly natural human response given the bloody provocation. Jonathan Hayes, a company director who worked in the building above the dance class, and went to help the girls and their teacher, sustaining a serious leg wound, said that the days of violence that followed the attack were prompted by frustration about levels of immigration.

“There appears to be a strong undercurrent of discontent for some time about the levels of immigration, and this is just a catalyst or a trigger… I’m not particularly politically motivated, but I do get dismayed when I hear Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper talking about how the police are going to come down with the full force of the law, etc, on these people. But they’re not actually talking about the root cause, and they need to start listening and understanding that they need to address the cause rather than the symptoms. Putting these guys in prison isn’t going to deal with the sort of core issues.”