 Far right hooligans who assaulted Owen Jones last August in an unprovoked attack have today been sentenced. The incident took place at 2 a.m. outside of North London pub where Owen had been celebrating his birthday with friends. James Healy from Portsmouth who had at least nine convictions relating to football hooliganism stretching back to 1998 was sentenced to two years and eight months in jail today. The Guardian had these details on the judgment made of Healy. Let's get these up. So the judge described Healy as a man holding extreme right-wing opinions who attacked a victim who did no more than hold opinions on which the defendant did not agree. And then we got some quotes from the prosecution led by Philip McGee. McGee prosecuting said Healy possessed a greeting card which bore Nazi far right extremist terror symbols including those associated with the far right combat 18 group, one of whose tenets is kill all queers. Also discovered was a Nazi SS flag bearing a Totenkopf death's head skull symbol plus a number of pin badges including a circular pin badge with the lead the way and whatever it takes motto of combat 18 and the badge that says Chelsea FC no asylum seekers completely gross stuff. The two other men who took part in the attack were also sentenced and they were Liam Tracy 35 from Camden and Charlie Ambrose 31 from Brighton both received an eight month sentence suspended for two years. I'm joined by Owen Jones now. How do you feel about the sentences? Is they strong enough? I don't see prison as a solution to far right extremism. It isn't a solution to fascism. Fascism the far right are political problems. They're not judicial problems. They can't be defeated by custodial sentences and we can't just treat this as thuggery out on the streets. Obviously there was a political context to the attack. So I suppose I'm not I'm not going to start camping outside prison going free James Healy the Nazi one and we have a prison system which disproportionately locks up people who are poor with mental distress people who are of colour people who are imprisoned because of the war on drugs and my wider point though is you know this shouldn't be a focus on me. This was in my own case certainly just the most extreme example of a pretty relentless far right campaign in terms of being on the streets and harassed and repeated attempted assaults lots of death threats harassed whilst doing my job including on air. But we've got to remember that there are those from minorities as well as on the left who are targeted by the far right who don't have my profile in the media as a white guy and there are people from minorities who are being targeted harassed abused and indeed attacked and worse people have gone through far far worse than I have and don't get this attention or coverage. So if we think about this was judged to be a homophobic crime as well as a far right crime. Homophobic crimes have searched reported hate crimes have searched by half in five years transphobic hate crimes but have trebled that's the tip of the iceberg the vast majority of hate crimes are not reported and similarly there's been a surge in racist hate crimes hate crimes which are categorised as made by religion is homophobic hate crimes anti-semitic hate crimes they have all searched we do need to have that focus not on me as this white columnist at the Guardian who was attacked by someone with quite extensive collection of Nazi memorabilia in his house but we've got to broaden this out and the reason that's important is when we we have a discussion the mainstream media who radicalizes Islamist extremists with all our hate preachers and who they happen to be in the case of the far right in this country those hate preachers have mainstream platforms in the media entire media outlets mainstream politicians who have whipped up bigotry and hatred against Muslims and other minorities and who have vilified the left as terrorist loving Britain hating dangerous extremists actions of consequences and just one other example during the election remember that supposive punching of a conservative advisor which never happened which several broadcast journalists amplify before then deleting uh with often pretty mediocre apologies to a company that did we hear how many of you be honest how many of you heard about the two Labour activists both in their 70s one of whom they were both beaten up during canvassing one of who had alleged uh while had apparent broken ribs as a consequent a woman in her 70s how many of you have heard of that attack I would say very few and the truth is the left are constantly demonized and portrayed as an abusive rabble often because of mean tweets we hear about cancel culture because of celebrities often being criticized online but when you get an actual far right threat which has killed in this country which has attempted to kill which has been responsible for terrorist plots and which has violently assaulted people worse than myself it just shows doesn't it about the lack of focus on this menace uh and and the threat it poses to minorities and the left instead just this focus on vilifying the left which has fueled this this in the first place so you've said that you don't think you know far right activism activists this kind of very toxic politics we all agree on that the solution isn't sending people to prison what so what is the solution if if everybody was to do what you think is that is the right thing how do we go about changing this and making sure this doesn't happen in the broader sense obviously our justice system doesn't rehabilitate I do think that you know we do need when it comes to the far right to organize in our communities to organize on the streets and also to challenge the those who are complicit in radicalizing the far right and that as I've said is in the mainstream media and and within the political elites and to deal with often the despair and misery of a broken economic system that far extreme is feed upon but equally of course we have to invest in rehabilitating and you can do that with far right extremists as well I don't want James Healy to spend the rest of his life being this far right thuggish loser I think it's tragic in what's happened to him he obviously was so full of hatred because I'm gay and because my political opinions that in one moment he launched this attack and now has to pay with a prison sentence which is very early still having been released November 2021 didn't have to do that what's led him to this path I mean obviously he's got quite extensive violent history but obviously you know I'm not being a wishy washy fascism needs to be confronted and defeated and to be responsible when in power for tens of millions of deaths and across the world over the last few years several terrorist attacks which have killed huge numbers of Jews Muslims and other minority black people Latinx and many others um so I'm not being a wishy washy liberal kind of let's all sit around singing kumbaya but equally you've got we've got to have a strategy you know when when extremists like this in the same way we talk about other violent offenses to invest in rehabilitation and deradicalization we don't do that in this country and actually if you look at the prison system at the moment where often radicalization takes place we get people being radicalized with far out extremist and Islamist extremism within the prison complex there was a danger I don't think James Healy you know offense to him I mean he's having a torrent time as it is he's bright enough to go around radicalizing the British prison population that you know he could be even more radicalized in the prison system so we need to invest in actually doing that I mean it was this case the London bridge attack last year remember when a horrific attack when two people who worked in rehabilitation to young people were were attacked by Islamist extremist apparently in the years he'd previously been in prison he had like a few hours invested in deradicalization so far so I think we need to invest in that I'd prefer James Healy you know I don't instead of being locked up if he was actually thrown into an intensive rehabilitation system I would prefer that just doesn't exist finally do you think there's a danger this is going to become a free speech issue I'll clarify what I mean so you sort of alluded already to the idea that you know there are people well from from across the political spectrum I suppose who have written these open letters talking about how the climate especially on social media people judging what they're saying has has inhibited people's ability to speak freely about stuff and they're normally talking about you know condemnation in Twitter replies do you think that the threat of far right attacks is at a point whereby people are going to start self-censoring because they don't want to you know put themselves in the firing line well that is a danger and I worry as well that people would draw that conclusion from my own experience and I've been very clear and I said this to my you know friends and people are close to me who uh fair enough often get concerned and they should be concerned as well for themselves because you know I wasn't just attacked that evening you know three others defending me were also punched in the head so unfortunately I've become a threat including to to you guys if you went the next time we go for a drink there's always that threat lingering in the air and sorry about that um but I think you know it's very important firstly that you know I would never let them live in my head I didn't feel scared while supposed to be attacked like you'll think to say never going to be scared by these people never going to be intimidated but that is a danger there's lots of different ways you could respond to this and it's understandable if people were attacked that they'd start to sell censor but they aren't winning fascists if they do that and the reason I've been frustrated with the so-called cancel culture debate you know there's a Times article the other week which brought together lots of random different phenomena under the bracket cancel culture they included R. Kelly R. Kelly is an alleged pedophile and someone who allegedly sexually assaulted young women uh that was thrown in to a couple of activities you got criticized on twitter now if a term is being used to just to describe someone who is currently going through the justice system for alleged pedophilia and people who have got some twitter mentions which are critical of something they have done I think that term is redundant but what it is very striking is whilst we've heard JK Rowling using a very very big platform to save things which undoubtedly impact on a marginalised community and I will use my words carefully there because JK Rowling of course signed that letter on free speech a couple of weeks ago and has now sued a kids website for the way it described her comments on trans people and trans rights um she just shows the hypocrisy of the whole thing um but at the same time what it is striking that we hear a lot about oh no you know people can't say anything and they're being shut down because people are criticizing online whilst I'm not getting a violin out but this violin attack was just one of repeated you know people can see the videos online of me being harassed and targeted by far extremists whilst doing my jobs Ash Sarkar of Navarra fame with this parish she herself has been repeatedly vicious viciously attacked by far extremists who hate the fact that she's a woman of colour who's million times more intelligent than them an articulate fighter for justice for people who don't have a voice who terrorise her try to terrorise her including when she posted a picture of an orange lice lolly and three oranges reflecting her orange bike handles and a bike seat um trying to claim that she was glorifying the terrorist alleged terrorist attacking against three gay men in redding and then she got a load of death threats and violent threats they are trying to hound us out of public life and the other point it is important to make it winds people up of a certain type but it is the lived experience of me and others and I'm not gonna airbrush it is it is true that I talked about how far right well mainstream right-wing commentators and politicians help radicalise these people and that is undoubtedly the case when they speak of saboteurs and traitors and call the left terrorist loving britain hating dangerous extremists when they do all of that they're playing the fire but what about some people and no not all but some people who call themselves moderates and centrists who use both sides rhetoric who essentially call the left in a quite a broad term but in a broad definition as just as bad as the far right which is trump star both sidesism but in practice reserve far much more attention and bile for the left and I find and ash gets this and others get this as well often when I'm attacked in inflammatory ways by the so-called this grouping of of so-called moderates they're often being retreated by fascists and I just don't know if those people look at that and realise or consider that might be a slight problem because it's I'm not saying by the way oh you can't criticise the left I don't think that's ever going to stop and that happens on a daily basis and of course that scrutiny and debate should happen but when you get some people who call themselves moderate who have utterly vilified and become obsessed with the fire in the left and we can see that playing out this week in lots of different ways they were driven out of public life and are using quite extreme and inflammatory language to do so they are mainstreaming or legitimising far more extreme elements who take their cue and go well even these so-called moderate people hate these people which means these people are fair game and they've got a massive target on their heads and I would say to those people you are playing with fire and from whatever happens from here on in not just to myself but to others in terms of what we now have to face as a consequence of the existence of our extremists if you are fueling that radicalisation against the left the attempt to delegitimize the left as an acceptable legitimate political force in Britain you are helping to radicalise these extreme elements and that's not just right wing commentators and politicians it's some people who regard themselves as far more moderate indeed some who are in the Labour Party itself and there's nothing I can do to make them stop it but they should be aware of it and for whatever happens from here on in there needs to be a public record because it is a reality that can't be ignored.