- Fans have been left deeply disappointed after months of anticipation, as far-right patriot and provocateur Paul Golding has withdrawn from his scheduled fight with Mohamed Hijab.
I’ve got a game for you: spot the difference between far-right patriot Paul Golding and an armchair warrior. Trick question: there isn’t one.
Pathetic Paul, a self-proclaimed ethno-supremacist, has cancelled the highly anticipated legal bout with Brother Hijab scheduled for 28th June. The event had required significant preparation, funding, and effort, and had already garnered national media attention.
Golding dodged the fight with a blah blah blah explanation, and who can say they didn’t see this coming?
But why was this fight so highly anticipated? Golding first found Britain First in 2011, an extremist group which peddles Islamophobia and demonising rhetoric against Muslims. Golding continues to collude in political pantomime, with ramifications that are very real and far-reaching.
Anti-Muslim attacks have risen exponentially in the UK alongside increasingly inflammatory Islamophobic rhetoric from far-right figures such as Golding, who portray Muslims as a so- called threat, as well as spreading the unsubstantiated ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory.
Tell Mamma found that Islamophobic assaults surged by 73% in 2024 – 6,313 cases of anti-Muslim incidents were reported in the UK. This pattern has been widely linked by researchers to the normalisation of anti-Muslim narratives online, and in political and media discourse, which have evidently fuelled hostility in everyday life and instigated harm to the Muslim community.
Tell Mamma also reported a 103% increase in targeted anti-Muslim hate against women who are visibly Muslim, particularly Muslim women who are “usually wearing Islamic garments such as the hijab or niqab”, and that they are “often singled out for public harassment or attacks.”
Consequently, the fact that such a disgraceful individual – someone who has spent much of his time physically assaulting women instead of fighting men, while fuelling hatred that places innocent Muslims at risk – was finally facing accountability in a legal bout- this was an event many had long anticipated.
Golding’s fight talk was fierce, and perhaps, somewhere within us, we took it as a promise that he would at least meet that conviction with effort. Instead, it exposes a quiet dissonance between rhetoric and reality – between what was declared and what was ultimately delivered.
Golding released a video on social media platform X claiming to have health complications and issues with his spine. In response, Mohammed Hijab posted on X that he also had issues with his health but would never have backed out from the fight.
The next time patriot hate-mongers feel compelled to grandstand and agree to a legal fight, they should consider backing their rhetoric with action.
And, needless to say, being a man of your word – that’s the most honourable thing to do!
