Reactions to President Trump's retweets of Britain First

At about 3:30 in the morning on Wed., Nov. 29, 2017, instead of doing whatever it is that presidents are supposed to do in the middle of the night, President Trump retweeted three inflammatory videos posted by Jayda Fransen of the group Britain First. Fransen had captioned the videos:

Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!
Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!
Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!

A half-hour later, journalist Piers Morgan tweeted at the president: "what the hell are you doing...?"

The New York Daily News said that one of the three videos “was long ago debunked". The New York Times asserted that the perpetrator in the first video "was not a 'Muslim migrant'...according to local officials, both boys are Dutch," and the other two videos were several years old.

NBC News said that they "could not verify Britain First's claims of what the videos showed. Asked whether the White House has a responsibility to verify information before sharing it, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders responded that 'whether it’s a real video, the threat is real and that’s what the president is talking about.'"

Some Republicans objected: Sen. Jeff Flake, R-AZ, said the retweets were “highly inappropriate” and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, said they were "legitimizing religious bigotry."

"No modern American president has promoted inflammatory content of this sort from an extremist organization," Peter Baker and Eileen Sullivan wrote for the New York Times. James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence, said on CNN, "I have no idea what would motivate him to do that...To me, it's bizarre and disturbing, particularly when I think of him doing that in the context of North Korea, where moderation, and temperance and thought I think is critical."

Fransen, the deputy of Britain First, was convicted a year ago for abusing a woman wearing a hijab, and Paul Golding, the group's leader, spent time in prison, after which he stated: “I can promise you, from the very depths of my being, you will all meet your miserable ends at the hands of the Britain First movement. Every last one of you.” (Hope Not Hate)

Brian Klaas, an American who is a fellow at the London School of Economics, responded later the same day of the retweets:

“We are watching, in real time, the President of the United States using his power and platform to mainstream the vile ideologies of racist neo-fascism....if we continue to accept these reckless, divisive outbursts as part of our normal political discourse, then we will have answered the question as to whether we have any decency left too. We will have failed yet another test....Here in the UK, Britain First is correctly viewed by most as an extremist, racist hate group with no place in British politics....The UK has long been America's closest ally, with Brits and Americans fighting and dying together to defeat fascism. Now, Britain is being forced to turn away from the United States in horror as the President promotes neo-fascist hate.”

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UK reaction

UK Prime Minister Theresa May said that "retweeting from Britain First was the wrong thing to do," and Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said that, from his perspective, "any official visit at all from President Trump to Britain would not be welcomed." Labour Party leader Jeremy Bernard Corbyn, Labour MPs Chuka Umunna, David Lammy, Stephen Doughty, Chris Byrant and Conservative MP Peter Bone also strongly criticized the president's actions.

Video of Parliament criticism (hosted on Facebook)

In a tweet addressed to the prime minister, Trump responded: "Don't focus on me...We are doing just fine!”

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Explanation from Twitter

A Twitter spokesperson said the original tweets were allowed to remain online for this reason:

"To help ensure people have an opportunity to see every side of an issue, there may be the rare occasion when we allow controversial content or behavior which may otherwise violate our rules to remain on our service because we believe there is a legitimate public interest in its availability."

“It turns out that banishing the slur from public discourse was, in fact, important. Because now it’s back and it turns out that it does matter when subtext becomes actual text, when terrible people enable open hatred and bigotry, encouraging others to emulate them, degrading us all.”

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— David M. Perry (@lollardfish.bsky.social) December 22, 2025 at 9:00 AM

Hollywood celebrities protest hotel owned by the Sultan of Brunei

The Sultan of Brunei is one of richest people on the planet. He recently imposed a harsh form of sharia law upon his small country. Americans have reacted by boycotting his hotel. This article was originally posted to Helium Network on May 10, 2014. Photo: Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque in Brunei, taken by Sam Garza of Los Angeles © Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license Wikimedia Commons.

Hassanal Bolkiah, the 67-year-old Sultan of Brunei and one of the wealthiest men in the world, recently announced that the country would be held to a form of sharia law beginning May 1, 2014. "Sharia" refers to law based on Muslim religious principles. Brunei is majority Muslim; the one-third of the population that is non-Muslim will also be subject to at least parts of the law.

Sharia — spelled "Syariah" in news reports coming out of Brunei — is subject to variations and interpretations, and different regions have their own versions of it. In Brunei, the new law will be implemented in three phases.

In the first phase, women will be punished with prison and fines for becoming pregnant while unmarried or for violating the dress code. The law's Section 197, "Indecent Behaviour," defines as criminally indecent any act that "upsets eyewitnesses"; an officer of the new law admitted that indecent dress would be defined subjectively and that people should "look to public opinion" for guidance. People would also be punished for failing to attend Friday prayers.

Later this year, a second phase will see theft punished by amputation, while women who have abortions will be flogged, as will people who consume alcohol or who have sex with a person of the same gender. Next year, in 2015, a third phase will permit death by stoning for sex outside of marriage or with a person of the same gender. Blasphemy against Islam would also be punishable by death.

About Brunei

Brunei is a small country that borders Malaysia and the South China Sea and is near Indonesia and the Philippines. Fewer than a half-million people live there, and they enjoy a good material standard of living. Brunei's economy relies on oil exports.

The Sultan has a palace for each of his two wives. One of these palaces is bigger than the Vatican. In 1987, he spent an estimated $185 million for the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Many women residents of Brunei voluntarily cover their heads. Alcohol has long been banned there, and sexual acts between men has been illegal since colonialism, punishable by 10 years in prison. Scott Long speculated that "probably (as in Pakistan, which also formally embraced Sharia years ago) most gay cases will [continue to] be tried under that provision, because proof is easier." Several witnesses to the crime will be required under the new Sharia law before a person can be sentenced to be executed for same-sex acts.

Hotel boycott

News of this particular law was taken personally by some Americans, thousands of miles away from Brunei. They were concerned that the Sultan of Brunei owns the Dorchester Collection chain that manages the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Hotel Bel-Air, both in Los Angeles.

On May 5, a sign-waving crowd including comedian Jay Leno protested the hotel. Other celebrities calling for a boycott included Ellen DeGeneres and Richard Branson. On May 8, the Beverly Hills City Council voted unanimously for a resolution, urging Brunei to sell its property in Beverly Hills.

The boycott of a luxury hotel (or two) does not put much pressure on the Sultan of Brunei, who already has an estimated $20 billion, making him one of the richest people in the world. The people who will be more immediately affected, rather, are the roughly 1,000 employees of the two hotels. The CEO of the Dorchester Collection, Christopher Cowdray, warned that the boycott "will affect the livelihoods" of hotel employees in Los Angeles who have no connection to the Sultan of Brunei. Cowdray continued to say that "we are an exemplary employer, exemplary contributor to society and to the finances of this city." Another argument may be advanced that, if the Sultan were compelled to sell the hotel, he would simply stand to gain money from the sale.

It is nonetheless understandable why some people may wish to boycott. The activist culture in Hollywood, featuring many accomplished actors, is supportive of women's rights and gay rights. It is understandable that these rich celebrities would feel uncomfortable paying to hold and attend functions at a hotel owned by someone who is instituting a draconian law.

Americans' fear of sharia law

Throughout the United States, especially since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, some people have felt and spread fear that Muslim culture and religion will somehow overtake the country. This is unlikely, as only a fraction of 1 percent of Americans are Muslim.

Nevertheless, as an expression of this fear, several U.S. states have passed laws to prevent judges from considering "foreign laws" in their rulings. (Previously, some states had explicitly tried to ban "sharia," until federal courts ruled that it would be unconstitutional to specify sharia in the ban.)

The sense of proximity to sharia law that is felt by some Americans when walking into a hotel owned by the Sultan of Brunei — however tenuous that connection may be — may leave them feeling uncomfortable and personally threatened, in addition to the moral outrage they may assert when analytically considering the impact of sharia law on others who actually live in Brunei.

What matters

The new law in Brunei is an offense against human rights, according to the International Commission of Jurists. Many people will suffer greatly if these penalties are carried out; many others will suffer simply from the threat of these penalties. The reality of this surprisingly brutal penal code should remind people everywhere of the need to work for a more peaceful world.

Update

International objections succeeded in delaying Brunei's implementation of the law. Years later, however, Brunei announced that, beginning April 3, 2019, it would execute people for having extramarital or homosexual sex; the execution would be carried out by stoning or whipping. George Clooney wrote an opinion piece for Deadline calling for a boycott of hotels that do business with Brunei. "Every single time we stay at, or take meetings at or dine at any of these nine hotels we are putting money directly into the pockets of men who choose to stone and whip to death their own citizens for being gay or accused of adultery," he said. The hotels are:

The Dorchester, London
45 Park Lane, London
Coworth Park, UK
The Beverly Hills Hotel, Beverly Hills
Hotel Bel-Air, Los Angeles
Le Meurice, Paris
Hotel Plaza Athenee, Paris
Hotel Eden, Rome
Hotel Principe di Savoia, Milan
Some companies began to participate in the boycott in early April. Brunei said on May 5 that it would not enforce the death penalty.