This tweet appears to say it all. An apparently sweet and innocent MEP called Roger Helmer is defending another individual who as it happens is politically high profile and even more wealthy and powerful as a business man than Roger, called Arron who having been offended by a 16 year old student because she has had the tenacity to stand up and argue that our nation and the rest of the world must respond to environmental footprints which each of us make, himself took to twitter to threaten her stating:

“Freak yachting accidents do happen in August …”

This was a response to a tweet by my MP and previously my MEP Caroline Lucas who had written “Bon voyage to @GretaThunberg for her 2-week zero-carbon trip by sail across the North Atlantic”. There were certainly many criticisms of Banks, and whilst many were no doubt from people who are opposed to these two men others such as Julia Hartley Brewer who has also been a critic of Greta simply stated “She’s a child, Arron. FFS.” and Arron responds with “Quite and one being used”. Now despite his twitter handle claiming he is an MEP Roger Helmer who was a UKIP MEP until 2017 after transferring his political allegiance from the Conservative Party is no longer one. However he served the EU and the West Midlands and UKIP for 18 years, 15 years as a Tory and 3 years as a UKIP. These two men who have both frequently used social media to attack many other people clearly need to work together to protect one another now if there is a risk that they could be set upon by the supporters of a student. Its lovely that Roger Helmer maintains his MEP status even though it is two years since he resigned but perhaps it is time for him to go to this page he could work out how to change his twitter handle. At the same time he needs to avoid making things worse. After all Arron realised after the first few waves of criticism that he had taken things a bit too far. On the other hand for Roger to claim that the offensive tweet was a legitimate comment is clearly deeply concerning.