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Tommy Robinson

British far-right activist (born 1982)

Tommy Robinson (pseudonym of Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon; born 27 November 1982) is a far-right activist and convicted criminal. He was the co-founder (and former leader) of the English Defence League (EDL), an anti-Muslim movement in the United Kingdom. In the 2019 European Parliament Elections, he ran as an independent candidate in the North East of England with both UKIP and the For Britain political parties stepping down in the region; he lost to the then newly formed Brexit Party.

Tommy Robinson in 2015

Quotes

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2011

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  • Every single Muslim watching this... on 7/7 you got away with killing and maiming British citizens... you had better understand that we have built a network from one end of the country to the other end... and the Islamic community will feel the full force of the English Defence League if we see any of our British citizens killed, maimed, or hurt on British soil ever again.
  • We stand against extremism and we condemn all acts of violence but at the same time you have to give people in our community that are concerned about the threat of Islam, which is a genuine threat, you have to give them an opportunity to have a voice. I share the same fact that Islam is a threat but we completely condemn any acts of violence against innocent people. What has happened over there (Norway) is horrific and will be remembered for the rest of eternity as a disgusting, deranged attack.

2013

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  • Nazism and Islamism are on the opposite sides of the same coin – we oppose both. Nazism has been defeated and Islamism is spreading across the country.
  • I have been considering this move [to leave EDL] for a long time because I recognise that, though street demonstrations have brought us to this point, they are no longer productive. I acknowledge the dangers of far-right extremism and the ongoing need to counter Islamist ideology not with violence but with better, democratic ideas.
  • I apologise for the fact that what I've represented and said has not resonated individually with Muslims. From day one in the English Defence League, we've wanted to embrace everyone: all colours and all creeds.
  • There should be better regulation of mosques in the UK to curb the influence of preachers of hate and an end to Islamic immigration until the problem is solved
  • Islam is not a religion of peace; it never has been and never will be.

CBN News interview (November 2013)

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"UK's Tommy Robinson: Racist, Bigot, or Hero?", CBN News (November 2013)
  • The last thing we want is a war in this country, but it is the inevitable outcome for the way the country is going. Now, the British people are not going to sit back and take much more.
  • As a father, I have serious concerns about what life will be like for my kids, if I'm even here. Am I scared of the death threats, and people who want to kill me and the attacks against me, etc? Yeah, I am. Of course, I am. I wouldn't be human if I wasn't. But I am terrified for the entire next generation of this country, and its history, its culture, its identity – it's all under attack.

2014

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2015

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  • I had some left wing fella ask me this, he started asking me my views on most things. I'm liberal in many senses, like when it comes to (probably not when I was younger) when it comes to gay people's rights I fight for a gay man's rights – so on all of these issues, as I've grown up, I said,... when people say that I'm far right, well what makes me right wing? Am I right wing just because I don't like Islam? Does that make me right wing just because I don't like a fascist ideology? If I didn't like scientology, does that make me right wing? No, it's an ideology. So I said like, "most of my views, they're very liberal – many of them would be left-wing".

2017

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  • Islam is not up for reform or negotiation – so we have no other choice than to fight it.
    • As quoted in Julia Ebner's The Rage: The Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far-Right Extremism (30 September 2017)
  • No matter how [haram terrorists'] life has been, if they wanna get to heaven, they just have to kill non-Muslims in a holy jihad. That's all they have to do, then they get to heaven. It's like an easy "card out" for Muslims who've behaved badly their whole life. And we've seen this time and time again with the terrorists that we find. They say, "He wasn't a practicing Muslim". No, but because of the scripture in Islam, he genuinely believes he is going to eternal hell fire for the life that he's lived. He sees going and running down 20 or 40 people, and killing coppers, and killing innocent people, he sees that as a "get out" because of the scripture in Islam. That's why.

2018

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  • Do you know how many times I have gone into Bedford police station, I have gone into Kempston police station, to say here are comments to kill my family but nothing ever gets done. I have three kids, an innocent wife, my family are scared.

2019

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Quotes about Tommy Robinson

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I believe he is entirely unsuitable to be involved in any political party.
~ Nigel Farage
  • Mr Batten’s obsession with Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (to use Tommy Robinson’s real name) and fixation with the issue of Islam makes Ukip unrecognisable to many of us.
  • I believe he is entirely unsuitable to be involved in any political party. The fact is that his entourage includes violent criminals and ex-BNP members. Many Ukip members - including Ukip's NEC – urged that Robinson should not become an advisor to Batten. Sadly, these pleas fell on deaf ears.
  • In the photo [published in The Sunday Telegraph a few dats earlier], Tommy Robinson can be seen seated beside Gerard Batten. Next to Robinson is a man called Daniel Thomas, a convicted armed kidnapper. There are other pretty unsavoury-looking characters dotted around the room.
  • I made sure that extremists were never allowed into that party. [...] They then got a leader that thought Tommy Robinson was the great saviour of this country. Now, he might be a working class hero to some but I'm afraid the truth of it is he's an out of control yob. He's been in prison four times for four separate offences. When you get someone like that involved in a political party, their fortunes will literally fall off a cliff and I warned them, and I warned them, and I warned them.
  • You knew perfectly well that you were not welcome in the United States. You knew that because you tried before and you had not got in, and you knew the reason for that - because, rightly or wrongly, the US authorities do not welcome people in their country who have convictions of the kind that you have. With that full knowledge, you equipped yourself with a passport. I am told that it was given you by way of a loan from your friend Andrew McMaster, to which you bore, I am told, some resemblance. And by use of that passport you did what you could to get into the United States. [...] What you did went absolutely to the heart of the immigration controls that the United States are entitled to have. Had it been known in this country that you were proposing to leave under a false passport, you would not have been accepted on to the plane and you would not have been permitted to leave this country on a false passport. It's not in any sense trivial.
  • In late October Lennon did a short livestream where he explained he was working on a long article unpacking the Ye [Kanye West] situation where he would outline his thoughts on supposed Jewish influence. He has now published it on his Urban Scoop website. Titled 'Tommy's Statement: The Jewish Question', it is much more extreme than expected.
    While accepting that Ye used "imprecise" language about Jews, and at pains to say he was not talking about "all Jews", Lennon's long and rambling article is full of conspiratorial antisemitism about supposed Jewish influence.
    It opens with a long attack against the American-based Jewish organisation the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a favourite target of antisemites.
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