REVEALED, MILITANT COUPLE IN MOGG STORM
THESE are the images that show a masked mob heckling Jacob Rees-Mogg during a university speech.
Footage shows the Tory MP march up to the hooded protesters and try to reason with them as they shout, ‘No platform for homophobes, no platform for racists’.
Mr Rees-Mogg, 48, had been invited to speak to 300 people by the Politics and International Relations Society at the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, but the event descended into chaos.
Yesterday, a middle-class graduate who once advocated punching ‘Nazi women’ and his Romanian-born girlfriend were identified as two of the Left-wing activists.
Footage shows 24-year-old Josh Connor, wearing sunglasses, swinging a punch during the fracas. It was apparently in retaliation as he thought his girlfriend Andreea Dumitrache, a 25-year-old master’s student, had been struck in the face.
The couple, joined by seven members of the Bristol Antifascist Group, are Corbyn supporters living in Bristol.
Miss Dumitrache wrote in a blog post in 2016, saying: ‘I’m definitely a Jeremy Corbyn fan girl at heart and yes, I’m a bit ashamed of it. But I’m drawn to the underdog that’s speaking the truth.’
Mr Connor – who was seen shouting ‘No platform for sexists’ in Mr Rees-Mogg’s face – also has apparent links to Momentum.
In the footage, Mr Connor can be heard screaming ‘You just punched a woman,’ to a man in a white shirt. Miss Dumitrache later said on Twitter the man had punched her. But, identified yesterday as the man wearing white, 55-year-old Paul Townsley, a Navy veteran and martial artist, denied hitting anybody. Mr Townsley, who had been attending the event with his son, a sixth form pupil, said: ‘[Mr Rees-Mogg] was vulnerable. From the guy in the sunglasses’ body language he was getting more aggressive and getting into Mr Rees-Mogg’s personal space.
‘I didn’t hit anybody. She was too close and I put my hand up to protect myself.’
Three months ago Mr Connor, who is from Nottingham and works in recruitment, was accused of advocating violence against women. In a debate on Twitter, he was asked: ‘Do women who don’t speak as you want them to deserve punching?’
He replied: ‘Women who speak to invalidate the experience of someone who faces far more oppressive structures than they do, yeah. Same as I’ll punch Nazi women for saying Nazi things.’
His involvement in Friday’s protest was condemned by his grandmother. Jillian Connor, 82, said: ‘I saw it and I thought, “Surely not. You naughty boy”.
‘He is a very keen socialist, slightly to the Left of Trotsky. I can’t say I’m surprised but I thought he was maturing.’
Yesterday an UWE student who claimed to have been punched said he had reported the matter to police.
Mr Rees-Mogg told Sky News he had ‘never felt threatened or unsafe’ during the entire incident.