British far-right activist, multifaceted criminal offender, founder of the European Defence League and author (b. 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.
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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".
Working class communities in this country are rough communities. It was never gonna be doctors and nurses to stand up to militant Islam in the streets of this country. When we first formed, we faced a very violent response by members of the Muslim community who would come out. And images were sent across this country of our supporters on the floor getting their heads kicked in. Now, when we went to our next demonstration, how many 30-year-old school teachers are going to come out and oppose militant Islam?
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.
Previous prime ministers, be it William Gladstone who said, 'There will never be peace on this earth as long as we have the Koran, it's an accursed and violent book.' Then we have Winston Churchill who said, 'Islam in a man is like rabies in a dog.' And then we have David Cameron, who says Islam is a religion of peace. What's changed? Because the [<nowiki/>Koran] hasn't changed.
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.