Independent conservative/libertarian journalist Lauren Southern was detained in France March 12 and denied entry into the United Kingdom, supposedly for spouting racist and “Islamophobic” views.
A self-described “Gonzo journalist,” Southern was detained in Calais, France, before being denied entry into the U.K., supposedly “over a poster she distributed about Islam in February.”
Described by the majority media as “alt right,” “far right,” and “ultra right-wing,” Southern said that she was traveling to the U.K. to meet friends, including English activist Tommy Robinson, whom Fox News said is “known for his fiery criticism of Islam.”
According to Fox, Southern said the U.K.’s notice of refusal of entry cited her “distribution of racist materials” in February in the city of Luton, which the document claimed “represents a threat to the fundamental interests of society and to the public policy of the United Kingdom.”
As reported by Fox, both Southern and Robinson explained that “the material being referred to was a social experiment in which they passed around a fake ‘LGBT for Islam UK’ poster that said: ‘Allah is Gay, Allah is Trans, Allah is Lesbian, Allah is Intersex, Allah is Feminist, Allah is Queer, Allah is All of Us.’”
Luton has a significant Muslim population, and Southern said the experiment was in response to an article in Canada’s Vice magazine asking if Jesus was gay. Southern said the experiment “was conducted to show what the Islamic reaction would be if a similar claim was made about Allah,” reported Fox. “Robinson said they were forced to take the posters down by police and told it was for their own safety. Both Robinson and Southern denied that the materials were racist, arguing that criticizing a religion is not a racist act.”
A spokesperson for the U.K.’s Home Office said in a statement that the country’s Border Force “has the power to refuse entry to an individual if it is considered that his or her presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good.”
Southern recalled that she spent six hours detained at the Calais border port, where her cellphone was confiscated, and she was held in a detention center for four hours while subjected to what she described as a “bizarre” line of interrogation.
“They asked me if I’m a Christian extremist, asked me how I feel about running over people with cars,” she told Fox News. “They asked me about Tommy Robinson, asked how I would describe myself politically, asked me how I would describe nationalism.”
Southern, who has been endorsed by conservative commentator Ann Coulter, suggested that her treatment may indicate a new crackdown on unapproved opinion in the U.K. “It seems it could be marking the end of conservative speech in the U.K. or the beginning of an era of serious censorship,” Southern said.
Here in the United States, the like-minded leftist censorial Southern Poverty Law Center has referred to Southern as an “anti-feminist, xenophobic, Islamophobic [whose] diatribes tiptoe at the precipice of outright white nationalism.”
According to the Washington Times, Southern — who is the author of the recently released book Barbarians: How the Baby Boomers, Immigration, and Islam Screwed My Generation — “joins American radio host Michael Savage and Pamela Geller of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) on the U.K. list of individuals who threaten ‘the public good,’” apparently because “all three individuals offer candid commentary on radical Islam and Europe’s immigration policies.”
It seems that Southern joins at least one high-profile individual identified as an undesirable to the UK elite. As reported by Fox News, President Trump “has faced calls to refuse him entry to the UK, with a number of politicians calling for Prime Minister Theresa May to cancel a planned state visit [in February] over his views and policies on immigration and Islam in particular.”
After Trump backed out of the February visit, London Mayor Sadiq Khan gloated that the president had “got the message” and was “not welcome here while he is pursuing such a divisive agenda.”
Photo of Lauren Southern: Lauren Southern
