BURN them in their hotels, she said. And try to burn them in their hotels they did.

On July 29 last year, Lucy Connolly wrote on the social media platform X: “Mass deportation now. Set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the b*****ds for all I care.”

On August 4 in Rotherham, a far-right mob tried to burn down a hotel housing 200 asylum seekers. Sentencing one of the rioters, a judge said the intention was “to endanger the lives of many people trapped in the hotel”.

Connolly is now deified as a martyr by swathes of the British press and leading politicians.

She pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred. Sentenced to 31 months, she’s been released after just ten and feted as a “political prisoner”.

In a sane, normal country, Connolly would be treated as a contemptible extremist. Not in Britain. But then this is no longer a sane, normal country.

Nigel Farage wrote on X: “Welcome to freedom, Lucy Connolly.” Tory leader Kemi Badenoch wrote: “Lucy Connolly finally returns home to her family today. At last.”

Now imagine how either of those politicians might react if this was a Muslim or left-wing prisoner, released early after calling for people to be burned. Imagine what the media would say?

Britain has lost its moral bearings. To offer any succour to someone like Connolly is to revile decency, humanity and respect for the law.

But we are a nation unhinged. Connolly was tweeting about something that was a far-right conspiracy. The killer in the Southport attack was British, not an immigrant.

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