How Do You Solve a Problem Like Tommy Robinson?

How do you solve a problem like Tommy Robinson? The journalist and former leader of the English Defence League has become a totemic figure who divides opinion. The BBC can scarcely go a day without invoking his pseudonym, swiftly followed by “real name Stephen Yaxley Lennon”. British media have made Robinson into a bogeyman, the mere mention of whose name shuts down any conversation on immigration or Islam with the fear of guilt-by-association. Others see Robinson as an avatar for the injustices visited on Britain’s working class, who cannot afford to move away from the unwanted consequences of multiculturalism imported into their neighbourhoods.

And yet, not one politician publicly supports him. To the contrary: Nigel Farage and Reform UK have made a habit of denouncing Robinson at every opportunity. This has estranged erstwhile ally Elon Musk, who wrote yesterday, “The Reform Party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes.” Having cost Farage a potential hundred-million dollar donation, Robinson is proving an intractable obstacle for Reform. Can they keep their distance without losing their core and most vocal supporters?

Opinions on Robinson remain divided within Reform. Reform UK’s London Mayoral candidate, and candidate for Dover and Deal in last year’s general election, Howard Cox, has publicly expressed support for Robinson. As has Alex Phillips, Farage’s longtime friend and former Brexit Party member of the European Parliament, who interviewed Robinson for her Substack last year. But last week, at Reform’s regional conference in Leicester, Farage said in no uncertain terms that Tommy is prohibited from joining his party.

“Robinson has been to prison many, many times for many, many things: mortgage fraud, passports, you name it. He’s got his own campaign. We are a political party aiming to win the next general election. He’s not what we need. …

“He’s [Elon Musk] attacking the leadership of Britain. He’s saying Britain’s been terribly badly led and that the grooming scandal, the mass rape scandal which has resurfaced and transcripts of what was said in court have been online. And I recommend you at home. Don’t read them. You won’t sleep at night.

“So, yes, he is attacking the leadership in Britain. He’s very supportive of me. He’s very supportive of the party. He sees Robinson as one of these people that fought against the grooming gangs.

“But of course, the truth is Tommy Robinson is in prison. Not for that, but for contempt of court for the third occasion.

“Equally, there are people in Britain who think that Robinson is a political prisoner. That’s the narrative that he’s pushed out. That’s how he earns his living. But it isn’t quite true.”

It should be noted that Robinson himself has never asked to join Reform. Rather, the incessant questions about his membership came from the press — which must be frustrating for Farage. Farage then promised to persuade Elon Musk, at President Trump’s inauguration, that his impression of Robinson as a political prisoner is mistaken. Musk appears to have disliked that idea.

Likewise, Chief Whip Lee Anderson MP said, “I would not welcome Tommy Robinson into Reform UK.” He was then heckled during his speech by a supporter of both Reform and Robinson. The following day, Deputy Leader Richard Tice MP reaffirmed he remains “not interested in mister Yaxley Lennon, or Robinson, or a convicted criminal.”

“I’ve made it very clear that we have nothing to do with Mr. Robinson. He is a convicted criminal, in jail. We are a serious political party who is [sic] trying to Reform the way this country is run, so that it’s run properly, managed properly, governed properly. And that’s why we, hopefully, are going to win the next general election. …

I’m not worried about a few hecklers and a bit of abuse on social media.”

The “abuse” in question refers to when, in a previous interview with Camilla Tominey, Tice dismissed Robinson as “not a good guy”, saying:

“All of that lot, we have nothing to do with them, want nothing to do with them. … I’m not aligning ourselves with Tommy Robinson’s lot in any shape or form.”

“That lot” objected, when Tice tacitly agreed to them being indistinguishable from Adolf Hitler for thinking their country should have borders. When I suggested in an article in November that disparaging one’s own voters was a bad idea, Tice took his lead from Joe Biden and called me “garbage” – twice.

My argument was that, in their eagerness to appear a safe alternative to Robinson’s street politics, Reform would feel pressure to conform to the media’s boundaries of what constitutes acceptable politics. This same media salivates at the prospect of seeing Reform discredited and dismantled. Seeking to appease them is suicide. Doing so would require a softening of immigration policy, and appeasement of Islam — something many fear has already begun to happen. This will cause core supporters to lose faith, and wander off down noxious political cul-de-sacs. Reform cannot afford to lose campaigners and potential candidates, who will put time and their own reputations on the line for their convictions, just as it’s building momentum. I say all of this, having voted for Reform twice.

“Now, I don’t attend those marches, but I am concerned about this kneejerk need to disavow thousands of Reform voters through guilt-by-association. Tommy Robinson may be imprudent in his public and personal conduct, but he has done less harm to the country than some of the Tory politicians that Reform would doubtless welcome as defectors. More importantly, nobody on those peaceful marches has done anything untoward to warrant such contempt. Donald Trump does not feel the need to distance himself from even the kookiest elements of the MAGA movement when hostile press attempt to pressure him. Reform should be wise enough to do the same.”

After Musk’s call for Nigel to be replaced on X, I dare say that I was right.

Robinson is currently in prison for contempt of court, after screening his documentary Silenced at a rally on 27 July, 2024. The film was ruled libelous in 2021, with the family of Syrian refugee Jamal Hijaz securing £100,000 in damages from Robinson. UK law prohibits me from commenting on its contents further; but Robinson defied the injunction, posting the film online, and showing it to crowds at the “Uniting the Kingdom” rally. He was charged in absentia, while he holidayed in Spain, and detained on arrival back in Britain. On 25 October, he received an additional charge under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, for refusing to provide a police officer with his phone PIN.

Due to threats against his life posed by the large number of Muslim inmates in British prisons, Robinson will serve his 18 month sentence in solitary confinement. As I wrote in an essay on the UK’s Soviet-esque justice system, this cruel and unusual arrangement gives further cause to complain about two-tier policing. The political nature of his prosecution is also suggested by the attorney general intervening to bring charges against Robinson personally. He was served notice via X. (Another testament to just how effective Elon’s purchase of Twitter was at rendering it the de facto town-square.)

How is Robinson coping with incarceration? Soon, we won’t know. My friend, journalist Lewis Brackpool revealed the prison housing Robinson, HMP Woodhill, is now requiring all visitors to sign non-disclosure agreements, preventing them from telling as little as Tommy’s mental state to the media. This followed Brackpool and Dan Wootton’s visits last year, after which Robinson alleged Southport massacre suspect Axel Rudakubana attends mosque in HMP Belmarsh. Because Brackpool refused to sign, he was denied a visit. A freedom of information access request may soon reveal whether this was the prison’s own doing, or a directive from the government. Either way, one gets the impression that Tommy Robinson is an inconvenience that many would rather see left in an oubliette, and forgotten.

Robinson’s plight has attracted sympathy, especially from overseas — where Britain’s stratified class system is less apparent, and the cordon sanitaire around him therefore less potent. Courage’s own Ayaan Hirsi Ali called him “courageous” in November. Dutch MP Geert Wilders said, “I’ll keep supporting him [Robinson] 100%! He exposed the horrible Pakistani grooming gangs where young girls were brutally raped and the perpetrators got away with it.” Utah Senator Mike Lee wrote, “The UK must free Tommy Robinson[.] If it doesn’t, there must be consequences”. Elon Musk posted “Free Tommy Robinson!” on X, and shared Silenced with the caption “Worth watching”.

Renewed support has since been compounded by Americans’ sudden awareness of predominantly-Pakistani Muslim rape gangs, which abused an estimated million white English and Sikh girls in over fifty towns and cities in the UK. These gangs were aided by social workers in foster homes, police officers, and local councils. The story was ignored and denied by mainstream media and politicians. Nobody complicit in the cover-up has ever been prosecuted. Robinson was one of the few figures who dared speak about the issue — and was instantly branded a radioactive racist. (As did Farage, in 2014.) While his imprisonment isn’t directly linked to the grooming gangs scandal, there is a sense of cosmic drama that it coincides.

This isn’t to put a gloss on Robinson’s failings. While not the mouth-frothing racist that state-funded communist activists make out, he has acted imprudently in his public conduct and personal life. He has admitted to illegal drug use and alcohol abuse. He retains a friendship with notorious pimp Andrew Tate. He has prior convictions for mortgage and passport fraud. (Though his assault charge was for punching a Nazi, so all sides should let that slide.) Such vices would preclude him from holding public office, had many elected MPs not already acted in much the same way. In ordinary times, Robinson wouldn’t be a role model for anyone. Instead, Robinson’s greatest sins are being coarser than his Oxbridge-educated counterparts would like, and being right about contentious stories earlier than it was made safe to be so.

But his being unfit to be Prime Minister does not make it wise to play into his being a bogeyman. Yet Farage frequently brings up Robinson of his own volition as a beyond-the-pale figure, to position himself as more palatable. He renounced any association with UKIP — the party he founded in 1993, as a vehicle to campaign for Brexit — in 2018, when then-leader Gerard Batten appointed Robinson an advisor on grooming gangs. His chief complaint? Robinson’s “fixation with the issue of Islam makes Ukip unrecognisable to many of us.”

During the protests which followed the Southport massacre last summer, Nigel Farage made a video in which he said:

“and as for the Tommy Robinsons and those that genuinely do stir up hatred: well, I’ve never had anything to do with them. In fact, I was the one person above all that got rid of the BMP as an electoral threat.”

(It should be noted that Robinson released a video the day after the first riot in Southport, discouraging violence and telling followers “We will not win our country back [sic] be throwing rocks. … You’ve got to remain calm.”)

But the perception that Farage, Tice, and now Anderson have created, of unanimous hostility, has needlessly estranged core voters. Until recently, the venn diagram of Tommy Robinson’s supporters and Reform voters was a circle. A strawpoll conducted at the second Unite the Kingdom rally showed that almost all the crowd voted Reform at July’s general election. Therefore, any dismissal of Robinson reads like a dismissal of the issues that he cares about; and any attack on his character codes like an attack on Reform’s voters.

Rather than focusing on Robinson, when answering questions posed by the hostile press, Reform should simply promise to address the problems his supporters are concerned about. This is what Rupert Lowe MP did, after Musk expressed dissatisfaction with Farage. In a masterfully diplomatic post, Lowe wrote:

“More awareness has been raised around the rape and abuse of thousands of vulnerable British girls in the last few days than has ever happened before. As a country, this is a conversation we needed to have. It shames our political class that it has taken a man of Elon Musk’s influence to drag this into the light.

This is where the focus should remain, not elsewhere – swift and brutal justice for those responsible.

Tommy Robinson’s role in exposing these gangs should be acknowledged. He is not right for Reform, but I do think that his efforts in revealing these heinous crimes should not be overlooked.

I thank Elon for his kind comments. I just want to do what is right for my constituency and my country – that is my only interest.”

Farage need only look to Douglas Murray, who said it best, in a recent interview with The Spectator, for how to handle this situation.

“If all these people had been doing their jobs, it wouldn’t matter what Tommy Robinson had or had not said. All of this is a deflection. It’s always this way: let’s leap at one of the people who has responded to this and say they did it wrong, and then we can keep on not addressing the question. And I think this is a uniquely British vice.”

The furore around Robinson is what Douglas Murray has diagnosed before as a hyperfixation with second-order issues. Robinson’s name is mentioned to distract from the failings of the ruling political class. There is no Hungarian version of Tommy Robinson because their politicians did not visit such horrors as the grooming gangs upon their people. Robinson would be an anonymous Luton fan if Britain had not been so utterly ruined. Reform supporter and author, Matt Goodwin said much the same:

“The blunt reality is Tommy Robinson would not be a significant figure were it not for the continued failure of the media and political class to call out and address the problem of Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs.”

It’s not about Robinson the man. Anytime they are asked, rather than antagonise those whose sympathies also lie with Robinson, Reform should simply reply, “Tommy Robinson was made possible by a media and political establishment who broke Britain with mass immigration. We inherited that mess, and we’re here to fix it.”

Nothing short of Farage visiting Robinson in prison might mend fences with Musk. Or who knows, Nigel’s trademark charm could smooth things over in Washington DC next week. But what has happened is a setback which serves nobody — not Reform, not their voters, not even Robinson. Reform must stop fearing the inevitable false accusations of racism from a hostile press to become the party Britain needs. Perhaps equally, Robinson’s supporters must not expect him to fit a mould of political leadership that he does not want. But most of all: never do your enemies’ bidding by throwing those they hate beneath the Brexit Bus, because they would rather see you dead than victorious.