A high court judge in London ordered actor and right-wing activist Laurence Fox to pay £180,000 (~$224,748) in damages to two people whom he called ‘pedophile’ [sic] online. Fox — founder of the right-wing populist Reclaim party — was the subject of a libel case for referring to Simon Blake, an ex-trustee of LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall, and a drag performer named Colin Seymour as “pedophiles,” after the two accused him of being a “racist” on X (formerly Twitter).
In October 2020, Fox announced he was boycotting UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s for its support of black history month. Fox’s announcement was met with accusations of racism by Blake and Seymour, as well as broadcaster Nicola Thorp. Fox responded to the allegations by calling his three detractors pedophiles. In response, Blake and Seymour sued Fox for libel.
The order to pay the two men £90,000 (~$112,374) each follows Fox’s losing his court bottle in January. Fox had counter-sued Blake and Seymour, claiming the pair’s allegations of racism were “reputation-destroying” and “career-ending.” He claimed they resulted in a “significant decline” in work.
“Mr. Fox’s labeling of Mr. Blake and Mr. Seymour as pedophiles was, on the evidence… seriously harmful, defamatory and baseless,” said Justice Collins Rice. “The law affords few defenses to defamation of this sort. Mr Fox did not attempt to show these allegations were true, and he was not able to bring himself on the facts within the terms of any other defense recognized in law.” The judge also said that the tweets calling Fox ‘racist’ were unlikely to harm his reputation.
During the trial, Fox maintained he was a victim of racism. “There’s huge quantities of anti-right white racism in the world. It’s the only acceptable form of racism there is left.”
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