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For how much longer is the former Trump campaign manager and co-founder of Cambridge Analytica going to be allowed to subvert our politics and stoke division in our communities? Sharing a platform with Liz Truss at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland last week, and talking about the forthcoming Rochdale by-election, Steve Bannon described Tommy Robinson as a “hero” and Truss – the shortest-serving Prime Minister in UK history – appeared to agree with him. “That is correct,” she said. This is not the first time Bannon has praised the founder of the English Defence League, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. Four years ago, while Robinson was serving a 13-month prison sentence for contempt of court, Bannon called him “the backbone” of the UK. But it is the first time such a senior Conservative has endorsed him.
Deputy Conservative Prime Minister Oliver Dowden attempted to make excuses for Truss this weekend, saying she might not have heard Bannon correctly. But even if Truss, who is still a Conservative MP, didn’t understand she was supporting a multiply-convicted Brish criminal and subversive activist, she should have known that she was sharing a stage with another multiply-convicted American criminal and subversive activist – Steve Bannon himself. Bannon, as Grant Stern first revealed in this newspaper five years ago, was investigated and indicted for fraudulently using funds raised for his ‘Build the Wall’ US-Mexico barrier project in 2020. Outgoing President Donald Trump granted a last-minute pardon for his federal offences in 2021, but Bannon still faces state-level charges in a trial in New York later this year. He was also found guilty of two charges of criminal contempt for his role in the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. This is where Bannon’s role in both American and US democracy really matters: his vociferous attempts to destroy it on both sides of the Atlantic.