We have legal prohibitions against hate speech and incitement that have been arrived at democratically: deciding that they don’t go far enough so you’re going to take matters into your own hands is not just violent and lawless but supremely arrogant.

Your naivety is profound. The law is defined by the victors who subsequently imbue in law, the rights and privileges they fought for with violence. But that happens after the fact. The Nazis were not defeated because we went “no you can’t do that, look at this law here”, they were defeated by shooting them with bullets until they gave up. In Germany it’s illegal to be a Nazi, and yet they’re coming back, so clearly the law itself is not enough, it must be enforced by someone.

Labour are clearly not going to do it, so what do you recommend?

It also plays into the fascists’ desire for violence.

Actually this is incorrect. They are the ones that like to be violent but they absolutely cannot take it. If they knew they would get attacked every time they stuck their heads up above the parapet, we wouldn’t hear from them any more. They want it all their own way, they want to be able to attack people and set fire to buildings with impunity, they cannot tolerate even the most mild of pushbacks. In this guy’s case I suspect we won’t hear as much from him. Yes he’s got his footage of being attacked, which I’m sure he’ll whine him out online for a while, but I also suspect that he won’t be pulling stunts like that again.

It’s wrong morally, legally and practically.

Morality is your own judgement it’s not that absolute that you can point to so this comment is meaningless. It’s definitely illegal, I’m not sure if that makes a difference though since the law isn’t being enforced so what the law says is also meaningless. Practically I think I’ve explained why it’s actually worked, the skid mark has been scared off. I know he’s threatened to come back with a bunch of lads but I doubt he will. They’re still going to be far more of us than there is of them.