Tommy Robinson: Double standards, not fear of diversity, provoked the EDL

The first time I met Tommy Robinson I told him to fuck off. The English Defence League (EDL) had just formed and Robinson came up to me after a public interview I was doing in London. Without knowing anything much about them, I am afraid I assumed (white, working-class, Cross of St George at demos) that the EDL were a British National Party front. Which was why I ended up advising him of the procreative way in which to travel. He took it very politely, said he understood that I didn’t know their views and then said, ‘We’re not racists — we’re just working-class guys who are losing our country and can’t bear it.’

Last week, four-and-a-half-years on, we met again. Several days earlier Robinson had announced he was leaving the movement he had formed, saying — to some guffawing — that he was no longer able to control the genuine far-right elements who sought to hijack his movement. He was aided by the Quilliam Foundation, an anti-extremism think tank, and it was a close Muslim friend of mine who had been guiding Robinson through some of this who called me up to ask if I would hear Robinson out. I agreed.

How has the reaction been since leaving? ‘Difficult,’ he says. ‘People saying I’ve been bought out.’ It’s not just some former friends in the EDL who have it in for him. While walking through his home town of Luton, accompanied by a film crew, he was attacked by a gang of Muslims who punched him to the ground. ‘I went flying back on my arse,’ he says. ‘Another three came over and said, “We’re going to decapitate you.” It’s all on camera: “You need to be decapitated.” I’m sat there thinking, this is what the world needs to see, this is what middle England needs to see.