LBC presenter apologises for praising video blaming ‘Zionist backers’ for far-right riots

LBC presenter James O’Brien has apologised for praising a video circulating on social media that blames “Zionist backers” for pushing an agenda that has fueled the violent riots against Muslim communities in the UK.

During his Tuesday morning radio show on LBC in which he discussed the recent far-right anti-Muslim and anti-migrant riots, O’Brien mentioned a “lovely clip” of a man in a balaclava “saying that he’d had enough as a young Muslim and he was going to throw a brick at a church, and he turns around and tears off his balaclava and says to the camera, ‘no, of course I’m not, because that’s what they want us to do. They want it to be turned into some sort of two sides nonsense.’”

The video O’Brien refers to, posted on Monday by X account @luqmann_97, begins as an apparent attack on a church by a Muslim extremist, with the man in balaclava addressing the far-right agitators by saying to the camera: “Tommy Robinson, you’ve been targeting our mosques, now we’re going to target your church.” He then fakes the act of throwing a rock at the building behind him before removing the balaclava, as O’Brien explained during his radio show, and saying, “that’s exactly the kind of response that you’re looking for – you’re trying to push the Muslim community, you’re trying to agitate us, and we’re not going to give it to you.”