The rebuilding of Tommy Robinson

New Statesman​

4 days ago

Photo by Benjamin Cremel/ AFP
It's never occurred to me to feel nostalgic or grateful for Tommy Robinson's English Defence League. The EDL was self-evidently drawn from a school, or squadron, of politics we're rightly inoculated against, one born of the bottle and the baggie, in which protester and hooligan form one brawling silhouette. And then there was the documented plot to blow up mosques brewed up by an EDL member, the correspondence between EDL activists and the Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik, and the convictions handed round after 100-man post-match pile-ups. Nope, I've always thought, I'm pretty content to see the back of them.
So it's refreshing to see its reputation disinfected, laundered and aired by Robinson courtesy of the YouTube channel Triggernometry. The interview is one of a series Robinson has given to sympathetic listeners in recent days and weeks, from the former GB News hack Dan Wootton to someone called Liam Tuffs (the latter is a 'close friend of Tommy Robinson' and runs a 'no-holds-barred podcast channel'.) Robinson's appearance is the same on each: intense, suntanned and scowling. But Triggernometry is by far his biggest coup. Released on Monday (10 August), the video has already achieved 1.3 million views, and is one of the channel's most popular in its seven years online (not far behind Stephen Fry, a previous guest). If he ever truly went away, Tommy is back.
And speaking here, Robinson attempts to give the EDL credit for prompting police action on the Pakistani grooming gangs in the early 2010s. Of course, this does look past the work of Sara Rowbotham, the NHS worker who raised dozens of referrals about sexual grooming in Rochdale while Robinson was keeping his good works to the terraces. And, when discussing police cover-ups of the same, he doesn't mention Margaret Oliver, the policewoman and whistleblower who has helped to expose the incompetence of her colleagues at Greater Manchester Police. But this is typical of an interview that benefits Robinson far more than it does politics or the public record.
Watching Triggernometry is a strange experience. You can get past the two hosts, neither of them naturals, the anuran Konstantin Kisin, and the mostly mute and uncomfortable-looking Francis Foster. But more bizarrely, the videos are broken up by Kisin's presenting of paid sponsorship for various products tailored for a mainstream-questioning audience: VPNs, medical hypnosis treatments and saffron supplements (apparently it's the best thing for a good night's sleep). But, you must keep reminding yourself, this is the mainstream now. Kisin and Foster are – at a considerable push – our Robin Day or Russell Harty. With their help, Robinson is reaching a far larger audience, and with far less scrutiny, than his Lacoste-shirted, air-chopping younger self did with Jeremy Paxman in 2011.
The chummy Triggernometry conversation with Robinson amounts to a stream of euphemism. The tone is established with the seventh word of Kisin's introduction, 'mate'. From then, Robinson is barely interrupted or opposed. A football hooligan firm is remembered as 'young men finding their identity'. Robinson's own brawling is only nudged and winked at by our hosts, a juvenile folly like scrumping or knock knock run. ('Five hundred years ago, the country would be desperate for people like you,' says Kisin at one point. 'You're a warrior.') The conversation is framed by Robinson alone. He roams freely through his twisted woodland of self-justifying anecdotes, spinning and yarning. Kisin and Foster follow patiently a few paces behind.
It's left to Robinson to bring up his own criminal convictions. Thinking back to 2014, he remembers having 'a refreshing moment in jail at the time, thinking about my life, where's it heading, what's going on'. From a timeline of Robinson's convictions, this would appear to be an 18-month stretch for mortgage fraud which he called 'a complete stitch-up' at the time, so it was good he hunkered down for some soul-searching while inside. At other moments, HMP Belmarsh sounds rather like Robben Island: 'If you worry about consequence, you're never going to bring about change,' Robinson says, reflecting on another conviction for entering America on a false passport in the early 2010s.
Alongside reputation management, the interview allows Robinson to relive freely the autobiography he has traded off since the late 2000s. The Luton of his birth is to be found just off the M1, and somewhere between Sodom and Gomorrah, a place of gang rapes, ethnic apartheid and chronic, stirring violence. (Writing for the New Statesman last summer, Robinson's working-class contemporary in Luton, Thomas Peak, questioned several aspects of Robinson's account.) The EDL was formed as a defensive measure, as Robinson watched the escalating outrage perpetrated by Muslim gangs. His textual study of the Koran (begun, pace this account, during another spell in solitary) has convinced Robinson that doctrinal Islam is the cause of these tensions and is incompatible with Western democracy. Though he closes the interview by distancing himself from those calling for mass remigration, at one point Robinson says 'well over a million' Muslims 'need to leave'.
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It's fierce stuff, and the comments beneath the video are full of support for this 'hero'. But forget his account of Luton – even Robinson's campaigning life is being contested, and looks very different when described by critical familiars. In a new memoir, the semi-retired alt-right activist Lauren Southern alleges Robinson spent his supporters' money on himself, with 'tens of thousands of these donations being pulled out of ATMs to pay for hookers, blow, and new flat-screen TVs', and that in 2018 Robinson flew her to Romania to introduce her to Andrew Tate, who later sexually assaulted her, accusations Robinson described as 'insanity'.
Tommy Robinson's nature was already a matter of criminal record. As were his shapeshifting powers: he's previously been Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, Andrew McMaster, Paul Harris and Wayne King. This reappearance in public life in the guise of the vindicated prophet is a depressing reassertion of various political continuities, some as old as the financial crash. Starmer's England stinks of 2013. The sick and helpless are being reclassified as welfare queens (they only need help to wash below the waist after all). Islam has been re-identified as the enemy within. Populism leads the polls, and far-right protesters line the streets. Their leader and their parasite, the great England-hating patriot, is back with them.
But the decision to front Robinson on a channel like this is evidence of a more novel phenomenon: marketing 'broken Britain' to an American audience. Almost a year ago, Robinson appeared on the Jordan Peterson Podcast, achieving 2.7 million views. Peterson had spoken sympathetically of Robinson's imprisonment as early as 2018. Steve Bannon has called him a 'hero' on his podcast (in front of his guest, a silent Liz Truss). On 2 January this year, while he was still in prison (this time on a case relating to contempt of court) Elon Musk's pinned tweet read 'Free Tommy Robinson!' A man who trades on his humble Irish-immigrant roots has become a transatlantic media starlet.
As have the Triggernometry hosts. Triggernometry's very first video in 2018 featured the lads in a high-minded back-and-forth with the Financial Times foreign affairs writer Gideon Rachman. During the Tommy Robinson interview, Konstantin Kisin reads out some advertising copy for gold and silver investments with Wyoming-based Augusta Precious Metals, directed at 'helping Americans move wealth… into self-directed IRAs'. This is political broadcasting in 2025. England is simmering, and the whole world is watching the men boiling the pot.
At the close of the interview, Robinson was given time to advertise his forthcoming rally on 13 September, at which he expects 'half a million to a million people'. Given the unsteady scenes outside migrant hotels across the country, should a fraction of that turn out, England can expect to see the menace of the EDL resurrected along with their leader. But perhaps don't expect as much brawling: after all, he's got mates in the media now.
[See also: One year on, tensions still circle Britain's asylum-seeker hotels]
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