Key Points:

Tommy Robinson is a far-right British activist, organizer and politician. He is a leading face of the UK’s anti-Islam and anti-immigration movements.

Robinson has been in the news many times over the years – for leading rallies, for his documentaries, for his political affiliations and endorsements, for his comments and social media posts, and for his numerous jail terms.

Most recently, he made headlines in the UK and internationally for leading the anti-immigration ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march in London on 13 September 2025. The march, which was presented as a ‘freedom of speech festival’, saw more than 1 lakh demonstrators protesting immigration in the UK with nationalist and Islamophobic overtones. The event turned violent, with some participants clashing with the police and attacking members from a nearby counter-protest. 26 officers were injured, and 24 protestors were arrested. UK PM Keir Starmer condemned the event, calling it ‘plastic patriotism’ and saying, “It sent a shiver through so many of our communities who now feel more scared than they did before.”

Before the violence, Robinson took to the stage, talking about how immigrants now had more rights than the ‘British public’, and riled the crowd, saying, “Look around you. Feel your strength. You are part of a tidal wave of patriotism that’s sweeping across this country.”

Who is Tommy Robinson?

Robinson was born in Luton, England in 1982. His legal name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, though he has gone by many aliases over the years, such as Andrew McMaster, Paul Harris and Wayne King. He describes himself as “a journalist, activist and public figure fighting for the forgotten people of the UK”.

He first rose to prominence in 2009, when he founded the English Defence League (EDL), a far-right, anti-Islam, anti-immigration pressure group. It held street demonstrations with hundreds to thousands of participants against radical Islam and immigrants – however, these often devolved into hooliganism and Islamophobic rhetoric, with many opposing groups protesting them. In 2011, some of its members were linked to a far-right Norwegian terrorist and convicted of a plot to bomb a number of mosques. This marked a decline in the group’s popularity, with Robinson soon exiting it in 2013.

Robinson continued to organise social movements, founding the European Defence League in 2010, a pan European movement based on the EDL, and Pegida UK, an offshoot of a German organisation called Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West.

Robinson has used his prominent social media presence, with more than 1.6 million followers on X and nearly 5 lakh subscribers on YouTube, to promote Islamophobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric. He has been banned from multiple social media platforms over the years for “hateful conduct” – Twitter in 2018, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook in 2019, and TikTok in 2020.

One of the major focuses in his activism and on his social media is UK grooming gangs – which have been in the public eye since 2002. He has often pointed to the gangs being composed primarily of Pakistani Muslim men.

In 2022, he released his documentary The Rape of Britain: Survivor Stories, which highlighted a pattern of assault and grooming by these gangs. It elaborated on how this was known to police and government officials, though no action was taken. Along with MP Rupert Lowe's private investigation into the matter, this prompted Kier Starmer to order an audit on the nature and scale of gang-based sexual assault in the UK, which proved Robinson’s assertion of institutional apathy and an “over-representation among suspects of Asian and Pakistani-heritage men.”

In 2023, Robinson released a second film, Silenced. The film talked about the assault of a Syrian refugee boy in a public school in 2018 and how Robinson had been censored while exposing the ‘truth’ behind the incident. He described it as a “story about how the law is being manipulated and exploited by the far left and Islamists to destroy the lives of anyone who speaks out against the so-called progressive, so-called liberal narrative."

The 15-year-old boy had been beaten by a 16-year-old classmate who had previously shared posts by Robinson on social media. Following the attacker’s arrest, Robinson falsely accused the victim of having assaulted two schoolgirls before the incident, despite the mother of one of the girls in question denying the allegation. This accusation prompted a flurry of hate and harassment towards the victim. After a letter from the victim’s lawyers, Robinson deleted his post and admitted that they were fake news, but was sued by the victim for defamation. He released his film while the court proceedings were ongoing, despite an injunction, reiterating his claims against the boy.

He was charged with libel and sentenced to 18 months in prison in July 2024 but was released in May 2025 under the condition that he would comply with the injunction going forward.

Robinson has been arrested many times over the course of life - sometimes for his activism, sometimes not – having been charged with public disorder, mortgage fraud, use of a false passport, assault, stalking, harassment and contempt of court.

See Also: Online Misinformation Fuels Tensions Over Deadly Southport Stabbing Attack

Robinson also ventured into politics. He first joined the British National Party in 2004, but left saying it was not for him, talking about its white-only membership policy. Then he joined the British Freedom Party, a far-right party that was briefly aligned with EDL, in 2012, but exited the same year to focus on other activities. In 2018, he joined the UK Independence Party in 2018 as advisor to its leader, Gerard Batton. His appointment was met with opposition within the party - many called for Batton’s resignation over it, while others, some prominent members within the party, resigned. In 2019, he ran as an independent candidate in the European Parliament Election but came eight.

Robinson has also been vocal on international politics, often supporting conservative leaders across elections. Amongst other instances, he endorsed Trump in the 2024 US Presidential Election, extended his support to the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), praised Italian PM Meloni on many of her anti-immigrant policies, and congratulated PM Modi on his 2024 Lok Sabha victory, saying, “Congratulations to India (the largest democracy in the world) for successfully avoiding Islam and Communism for a third term.”

This support extends both ways – many conservative politicians and activists have stood by him during his many arrests and spoken at rallies organised by Robinson. He has also been funded and endorsed by bigwig donors like Robert Shillman, Steve Bannon, and prominently Elon Musk. Musk has played a big role in furthering Robinson’s career. He reversed Robinson’s Twitter ban in 2022, after acquiring the company, and has posted about him on the platform many times since. Most recently, he spoke at Robinson’s ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march.

Robinson’s Latest Demonstration

Musk addressed the crowd virtually, talking about the ‘destruction of Britain’ due to ‘uncontrolled migration’ – “violence is coming to you … you either fight back or die,” he said.

French politician Eric Zemmour also spoke at the event, saying, “We are both subject to the same process of the great replacement of our European people by peoples coming from the south and of Muslim culture, you and we are being colonised by our former colonies.”

Protestors at the rally raised slogans such as “stop the boats,” “send them home,” and “enough is enough, save our children.” They carried UK flags in demonstration of their nationalism. They also paid tribute to Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated last week. A week earlier, Robinson had said in an interview that Islam is “terrorising the country.”

Stand Up To Racism, another pressure group, organised the counter ‘March Against Fascism” which saw 5,000 demonstrators raising slogans such as “stand up, fight back.” 1,000 police officers separated the two groups.

The march follows a number of anti-immigration rallies in the UK over the past few months – “20 demonstrations every week for the last seven weeks,” according to an activist from Stand Up To Racism – sparked by the arrest of an Ethiopian man for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. [Rh/DS]