Ozzy Osbourne wouldn't have marched with Tommy Robinson. Why is Sharon doing so?

“See you at the march.” That was the response of Sharon Osbourne, the rock manager turned reality TV star, in response to a social media post promoting a forthcoming far right knees-up in London.

The man behind Gauci Reports, a – coughs discreetly – “citizen journalism” channel that posted the original was unable to bear the excitement of this celebrity endorsement. Famed in his own circle for footage of far right protests, he wrote: “The Queen of Rock replied to my Instagram post. After years of watching Britain change, especially her hometown of Birmingham, she’s standing up!”

Never mind that Osbourne is no more the ‘Queen of Rock’ than I am the point guard for the New York Knickerbockers, the exchange has something to savour. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but the far right shit-stirrers have got their facts wrong.

Sharon Osbourne is from London, not Birmingham. She has never lived in Birmingham. Residing for decades in upscale neighbourhoods in Los Angeles with her husband, the late John “Ozzy” Osbourne, she was once, in fact, an immigrant.

These days, she seems to be going off the rails on a crazy train. Prior to volunteering to march in the company of career criminal Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – Tommy Robinson, if you must – last year Osbourne was advocating for the Belfast rappers Kneecap to be barred from entering the United States.

Irked by the group’s staunchly pro-Palestinian live shows, she wrote on social media: “The band,” she wrote, “openly support terrorist organisations… I urge you to join me in advocating for the revocation of Kneecap’s work visa”.

Leaving aside the vulgarity of the wife (and manager) of one of the most persecuted performers in rock and roll calling for the cancellation of a band she doesn’t like, as usual, Kneecap had the last word. Speaking to Rolling Stone, group member Mo Chara riposted that Osbourne’s “rant has so many holes in it that it hardly warrants a reply, but she should listen to War Pigs that was written by Black Sabbath (her husband)”.

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Before we go any further, let me at least say this for Sharon Osbourne: as well as admiring her bullheadedness (occasionally, at least) I also find myself acknowledging that cowardice is absent from her litany of personal shortcomings. Responding to a question about resisting pressure to boycott Israel, prior to an Ozzy gig in Rishon LeZion, in 2018, her answer was characteristically blunt. “I’m half a Heeb,” she said. “We play where we want to play.”

The bloodline comes from her father, music manager Don Arden. A fearsome figure who terrorised the rock biz, Osbourne claims to remember her dad scrapping with antisemites at speeches in South London by Oswald Mosley. (“One of the reasons [he] was a violent man is because of the things people said to him in those days,” she once told the Jewish News.)

At the time, in the 1950s, the marginalised Mosley was living in exile. Keeping up with the times, at public rallies in the Old Country, he augmented his dog and pony show with talk about immigration and the need for involuntary repatriation.

Sound familiar? In this light, Sharon Osbourne’s decision to march on London on May 16 is quite the departure from grace. Keeping company with Robinson’s Army, she has willingly taken sides with the kind of people with whom her infamously psychotic father did battle on the streets of Brixton almost 70 years ago. As my own dad used to say, for this, she wants her arse slapping.

Next month, in Westminster, the chatter of the protestors will be about how the importation of people of colour is a deliberate strategy aimed at weakening the “indigenous” population. What might not be mentioned is that this Great Replacement Theory has its roots in the perennially fertile soil of antisemitism.

In the eyes of its true adherents, “the Jews” – the Heebs, as Sharon Osbourne would call them- are masterminding the downfall of western civilisation. Celebrity endorsers might care to note that, sooner or later, the anti-Muslim Goon Squad will train its stare on the synagogues.

Seriously, how did it come to this? Notwithstanding her reputation as a motormouth-for-hire, in the summer of last year, the sight of Sharon broken by grief on the day of Ozzy’s funeral, was reported in the world’s media as if it were the Queen sat alone at the interment of Prince Philip. Barely nine months later, the speed with which so much goodwill has been squandered is almost impressive.

That week, in July, I was invited onto the BBC to discuss Ozzy’s life and legacy. In the hopes of arresting what was already becoming a reputational whitewash, I gently suggested to a well-spoken radio producer that I might make mention of the time the singer killed 17 cats in the family living room, or how his drunken antics at social gatherings used to terrify his own children. “Erm, perhaps not,” was the gist of the reply. “We’d rather focus on the positives.”

But here’s the thing of it. For a man who seemed capable of almost anything, I simply can’t imagine Ozzy marching to the beat of Tommy Robinson’s drum. Instead, the job has been seized by his widow.

For shame, Sharon Osbourne.