Who Is Jayda Fransen? The Notorious Islamophobe Whose Warnings About Islam Donald Trump Retweeted<\/b>
\nJayda Fransen was a notorious Islamophobe long before Donald Trump retweeted her warnings about Islam.<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old\u00a0was convicted of religiously aggravated assault for shouting at a woman<\/a> in a hijab\u00a0last year.<\/p>\n She told the woman<\/a> Muslims cannot control their sexual urges, saying: \u201cThat\u2019s why they are coming into my country raping women<\/a> across the continent\u201d.<\/p>\n Fransen has also advocated shooting Muslims and called for her opponents to be hanged.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, Trump retweeted her three inflammatory, unverified videos<\/a> she posted to stir up hatred of Muslims, a common tactic of the far right, anti-Islam Britain First, of which Fransen is deputy leader.<\/p>\n The videos<\/a> Trump retweeted are all in keeping with Britain First\u2019s repeated claims<\/p>\n Britain First, a fringe group built around publicity stunts and social media, says that Islam is an irredeemable threat to Europe.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s action stunned Britain, with one MP calling Britain First \u201ca fascist, racist, extremist hate group\u201d.<\/p>\n For six years, the group has fought and failed to get this kind of publicity, as electoral success eluded it.<\/p>\n When Sadiq Khan became the first Muslim elected mayor of a major Western city last year, the Britain First candidate turned his back in protest.<\/p>\n Paul Golding, who is also the party\u2019s leader, said he was protesting Islamic extremism.<\/p>\n It has carried out so-called \u201cChristian Patrols\u201d in areas with large Muslim populations, during which its members have scuffled with locals, often while repeating the myth that British cities have \u201cno go zones\u201d.<\/p>\n It has repeatedly\u00a0held protests outside mosques\u00a0and called Allah a \u201cfalse prophet\u201d.<\/p>\n Its founder Jim Dowson, a fundamentalist Christian, quit the party in 2014, saying its confrontations with Muslims were \u201ccounter-productive\u201d.<\/p>\n Britain First claims to be defenders of \u201ctraditional British Christian values\u201d and Golding has regularly invoked religious rhetoric to justify its actions.<\/p>\n It is often more akin to a militia than a party. Members have been pictured holding wooden \u201ctraining\u201d knives and wearing combat fatigues in the woods.<\/p>\n When Thomas Mair shot and stabbed MP Jo Cox to death, witnesses said the far right terrorist shouted \u201cBritain first!\u201d. The party said he was \u201ccategorically not a member\u201d and denied any link.<\/p>\n The party is bigger on social media than at the ballot box<\/p>\n It has never come close to winning any elections (Golding polled just 1.2% when he stood for London mayor) but tries a build its following on sites like Facebook.<\/p>\n There, it publishes videos<\/a> showing its leadership travelling to confront Muslims in public places and clips, like those Trump retweeted, that it claims show Muslims being violent.<\/p>\n It actually showed\u00a0UK rapper, MoStack, defending himself with a broom\u00a0as someone tried to attack him with a knife.<\/p>\n Its Facebook page has close to two million likes, more than any other UK party.\u00a0Fransen\u2019s personal page has 210,000.<\/p>\n But campaigners Hope Not Hate estimated Britain First has just 1,000 members.<\/p>\n Paul Golding\u2019s attempts at notoriety\u00a0<\/p>\n Both Golding and Fransen have were both banned from entering Luton, a town outside London where they have often demonstrated.<\/p>\n Golding was released from jail in January, having broken a court order not to enter a mosque,\u00a0and made a video<\/a> saying his time behind bars made him \u201cmore bitter\u201d.<\/p>\n In the alarming clip, he predicted a \u201cday of reckoning\u201d and threatened \u201cjournalists and politicians\u201d who have committed \u201ccrimes against our nation\u201d.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cI can promise you, from the very depths of my being, you will all meet your miserable ends at the hands of the Britain First movement. Every last one of you.\u201d<\/p>\n Inside Jayda Fransen\u2019s Self Promotion Machine<\/p>\n Fransen, who was party leader during Golding\u2019s stint in prison, was ecstatic to receive Trump\u2019s attention, tweeting in block capitals: \u201cGOD BLESS YOU TRUMP! GOD BLESS AMERICA!\u201d<\/p>\n 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<\/a> \u2014 Jayda Fransen (@JaydaBF) November 29, 2017 She often protests outside mosques holding a white cross.<\/p>\n On the London campaign trail, Fransen admonished the party\u2019s \u201cpro-EU, Islamist-loving opponents\u201d for \u201cruining our country\u201d, saying:\u00a0\u201cWe will not rest until every traitor is punished for their crimes against our country.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd by punished, I mean good old fashioned British justice at the end of a rope!\u201d<\/p>\n Her and the party\u2019s social media channels churn out \u201cJayda\u2019s Soapbox\u201d, a series of videos<\/a> where Fransen repeats far right shibboleths about immigration and the treacherous left.<\/p>\n A week after her November 2016 conviction for harassing a Muslim woman<\/a>, she put out a video<\/a> saying:\u00a0\u201cIf the presence of armed police is required to protect an innocent Christian family against Muslims in Britain, then they should be permitted to turn their guns on those Muslims.\u201d<\/p>\n Fransen was charged over a speech she gave in Belfast and is due in court again on December 14.<\/p>\n She and Golding are also being prosecuted for religiously aggravated harassment over leaflets and videos<\/a> they distributed during a rape trial of four Muslim men<\/a>.<\/p>\n Fransen, from south east London, has a grandfather who immigrated from the Netherlands, which is problematic given her party\u2019s manifesto proposes paying people of foreign descent to leave.<\/p>\n When HuffPost UK tracked Britain First<\/p>\n In 2015, Fransen\u2019s bodyguards threw\u00a0HuffPost UK reporter Steven Hopkins\u00a0out of the party\u2019s conference, who pushed him down a flight of stairs.<\/p>\n \u201cA pin-up girl<\/a> of the far right, with a mane of purple-hair and tattoos creeping out of her short skirt, suit jacket and heels,\u201d Hopkins wrote of her.<\/p>\n \u201cShe made younger members of her security-detail blush when she addressed them by name… Fransen hosted most of the conference and stepped in when Golding was challenged on the wording of policies.<\/p>\n \u201cShe has studied law. The crowd listened to her.\u201d<\/p>\n Britain First\u2019s claims and confrontations Who Is Jayda Fransen? The Notorious Islamophobe Whose Warnings About Islam Donald Trump Retweeted Jayda Fransen was a notorious Islamophobe long before Donald Trump retweeted her warnings about Islam. The 31-year-old\u00a0was convicted of religiously aggravated assault for shouting at a woman<\/a> in a hijab\u00a0last year. She told the woman<\/a> Muslims cannot control their sexual urges, … Continue reading Who Is Jayda Fransen? The Notorious Islamophobe Whose Warnings About Islam Donald Trump Retweeted<\/span>
\nFransen often styles herself a crusading heroine, signing off social media posts \u201cOCS\u201d – Onward Christian Soldiers – and calling herself a \u201csoldier of Christ\u201d.<\/p>\n
\n
\nwww.huffingtonpost.co.uk\/entry\/who-is-jayda-fransen-britain-first_uk_5a1e9d2be4b0d724fed4e604<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"