Lucy Connolly Far right rallies round woman imprisoned for hate speech

If Britain's far right were looking for a new cause célèbre after last year's Southport killings, many believe they have found it in the case of Lucy Connolly.

- Ben Quinn

If Britain's far right were looking for a new cause célèbre after last year's Southport killings, many believe they have found it in the case of Lucy Connolly. The former childminder and wife of a former Conservative councillor from Northampton was jailed for 31 months in October after calling for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set on fire.

Last week, she lost her appeal against the sentence, but this has only boosted her status as a martyr among far-right activists who are fundraising by using her name. Reform UK and mainstream Conservative voices have painted her as the latest victim of a "two-tier" justice system that they say treats offenders differently depending on their backgrounds.

Lobbying has now reached Donald Trump's administration, where the US state department says it is monitoring the case, referring to its concern about "infringements on freedom of expression".

Donations for Connolly in the UK include £40,000 raised by Reclaim the Media - a company set up by the far-right agitator and former actor Laurence Fox.

Patriotic Alternative - one of Britain's most active far-right groups - told its supporters it gave Connolly's family £1,000 from a fund established to help what it called "political prisoners".

At the same time, the judge who sentenced Connolly has become a target of abuse. One far-right influencer on social media posted a photograph of the judge under the heading: "The Banality of Evil: Who is Lucy Connolly's Anti-British, Woke Judge?" Replies included one that simply said: "Death Penalty".

The Law Society has expressed its concerns, saying: "Attacks on the legal profession undermine the rule of law and can have real-life consequences."