Last night I was arrested for a tweet

Last night, around 9.30, there was hammering on my front door. My partner went downstairs to answer the door to two policemen who had come to arrest me (footage here) for a public order offence as determined by their hate crime unit. They refused to divulge the offending post.

As it happens, it’s not the first time I’ve had the plod knocking on the door regarding social media posts. Some years ago I was cordially invited to attend a police interview which resulted in no further action. Not so this time. North Yorkshire Police decided that a meme I posted on August 5th necessitated dragging me from my home in the night, bundling me into a sealed snatch wagon, and shipping me off to Harrogate police custody suite (pictured) to rot in a cell for a few hours.

The offending post, I was told on arrival, was a “Fuck Hamas” meme. The full meme says “Fuck Hamas, Fuck Palestine, Fuck Islam. Want to protest? Fuck off to a Muslim country and protest”. A sentiment I wholly endorse.

I was held for some time in a holding area then subjected to interview. In the interview, to my shock and disgust, I had to explain to the interviewing plod what Hamas is. He was completely oblivious. He appeared to not know what happened on 7/10.

One of the interview questions was “do you know who Tommy Robinson is?” - followed by “Are you aware that he was the first person to post this meme?”.

I pointed out that this is not how memes work. It is not an established fact that Tommy Robinson was the first to post it. I just agreed with the sentiment when I posted it. Hamas is a proscribed terrorist group in the UK. I also agree with the “Fuck Palestine” sentiment. The Palestine flag is the flag of Islamo-leftist revolution and the agenda it represents is committed to the extermination of Jews. If you want to stand in support of that, you should fuck off to a Muslim country. As it happens, many Muslim countries would lock you up - both for supporting Hamas and for protesting.

I was asked whether I intended to incite racial hatred by posting the meme. I replied that Islam is not a race. I had not intended to stir up racial hatred. I simply agree with the premise of the meme. I am entitled to dislike a religion.

This was very much a politically motivated line of questioning. The intent was to establish if in some way I had sympathies with Tommy Robinson. I have mixed and nuanced views about him, but that is neither here nor there. I now recall that Tommy Robinson had faced police inquiries over that very same meme, and it is likely that I posted it in solidarity - because nobody should face police questioning over a meme.

I was further asked what else I tweeted about. I told them I tweeted about politics. They asked if I ever tweeted about race. I told them that I do tweet about race, culture and religion for the purposes of debate - which is entirely legitimate for a political analyst. They were attempting to establish motive.

That was about as far as it went. I was initially predisposed towards a no-comment interview in order to expedite the process - but there was no harm in stating that Hamas are murderous terrorist scumbags, and that I support free speech. Mainly, I just cooperated to get out of there. The police had strongly hinted that I would be detained longer if I opted for a solicitor - and since I was having an autistic tourettes episode, triggering palpitations, I was not coping well. The process is the punishment - and they know it.

To their credit, they spared me from a prison cell, but instead held me in the outdoor exercise compound at my request, but that’s basically an enlarged prison cell with a concrete floor and no roof. It’s easy to see how autistic people die in police custody.

I’m quite shaken by the whole thing right now. I’ve not slept and I’m not likely to. I’ve always known my tweets were a bit spicy but to be snatched by a goon squad at night for a “Fuck Hamas” meme is just breathtakingly outrageous and absurd. I don’t yet know how to proceed, but I can assure you I will fight this all the way, and I will not surrender.

Aside from the legal angle, this raises a great many questions about the police. If the police are as overstretched as they say, why did they send two goons in paramilitary kit halfway across the county to arrest someone over a meme? It was five hours of their time as well as mine. Is this really what the police are for? Why are violent offenders evading jail while ordinary, generally law-abiding citizens are subject to the full force police harassment?

I will have much more to say about this when I recover. I’m out on unconditional bail until December 21st when I must report to Harrogate police station to determine whether the CPS will press charges. We’ll see how it goes, but this is deeply sinister development. We are witnessing the transformation of the police force into a political inquisition - and as chilling as it is that there are no grown-ups in the room at the police station, there are apparently none in the CPS or the judiciary.

Last night I saw the true meaning of “banality of evil”. Two otherwise decent cops acting on orders, and nobody in the building saw anything amiss about locking someone up for an anti-Hamas tweet. This has got to stop.