Tommy Robinson isn’t Tommy Robinson at all. He is actually Stephen Yaxley-Lennon the son of Irish immigrants. He is also known as Andrew McMaster and Paul Harris. It seems he changes his name often. Tommy Robinson assumed the name of a prominent member of a Luton Town football hooligan crew. The Men In Gear MIG were notorious football hooligans. Why would anyone want to name themselves after one of their leaders?
In 2003 he was imprisoned for thirteen months for a drunken assault on an off-duty policeman.
In 2004 he joined the BNP – a British racist/fascist party.
in 2012 he set up the British Freedom Party – a far-right political group whose rank and file had many football hooligans.
In 2015 he was involved in Pegida UK – a chapter of the German far-right nationalist anti-Islamic group whose leader posed as Hitler and made racist statements on facebook – shades of the Nazis here?
He wrote for The Rebel Media – a Canadian far-right media website.
Now he has been jailed for thirteen months for contempt of court. He was deliberately filming and broadcasting Muslim defendants entering court at a rape trial contrary to reporting restrictions. Was he attempting to incite anti-Muslim hatred? Quite likely.
So what does this tell you about Tommy Robinson?
Was he justly imprisoned for defying the court and deliberately breaking the law?
Has he been inciting hatred?
Does our concern about immigrants and Muslims justify supporting racist fascist groups?