Millionaire eco-tycoon Dale Vince appeared to call Hamas “freedom fighters” last year and then waged a war of censorship against any media which reported his words. But the Guido Fawkes blog is standing up to him. The Telegraph has the story.
During an interview with Times Radio, in which he was asked whether a Hamas terrorist attack was Palestine defending itself, Vince said: “I think one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, right? That’s how it works.”
Angela Rayner, now Deputy Prime Minister, branded the comments “appalling”, while a slew of media outlets published reports suggesting the businessman had expressed support for the terrorist group.
Yet rather than backtrack, Vince has stood by his remarks and launched a wave of libel lawsuits against his detractors.
Now the tycoon is stepping up his assault as he seeks a court order that would effectively block access to the right-wing Guido Fawkes blog.
For Vince, who donated £5m to Labour in the run-up to the General Election, the campaign is the “most important piece of the puzzle” as he tries to clear his name. But the move has sparked accusations that Mr. Vince is using a tactic most commonly deployed in copyright cases in an effort to silence his critics.
Following widespread coverage of the comments, Vince went on the defensive.
Lawyers for the businessman filed a string of lawsuits, claiming the clip was used to imply that he was supporting Hamas’s actions, including “mass murder, kidnapping and rape”, during the October 7th attacks.
He has already successfully sued GB News and the Daily Mail for libel over their reporting as both outlets agreed to pay “substantial” damages and cover Vince’s legal costs.
In addition, Vince has started proceedings against Reform Chairman Richard Tice and Tory peer Shaun Bailey, while legal threats against a trio of current and former Conservative MPs triggered swift apologies.
Now, though, the former Just Stop Oil donor who switched his allegiances to Labour last year, has stepped up his campaign with a lawsuit against Paul Staines, the Editor of political blog Guido Fawkes.
Staines has long boasted that his Irish nationality and the fact his blog is hosted in the U.S. means he can ignore British court orders. However, the blogger has declared that on this occasion he will forgo any safe haven protection and defend the lawsuit head on.
In a blog post last week, he said: “We have no intention of apologising for reporting and commenting on his disgraceful equivocation. We’re going to make a stand and defend free speech and our reporting of the words he said.”
Staines also said he has given Vince the opportunity to “put on the record unambiguously that he does not think Hamas are freedom fighters”, but that he declined to do so.
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