UKIP At War Over Tommy Robinson

While he shows no sign of going to Australia for that triumphal tour with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes - despite the website still selling tickets at up to $995 a pop - Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, is now advertising his latest triumph. He has been appointed an official advisor to UKIP by interim leader Gerard Batten - advising on grooming gangs and prisons. And no, I am not making this up.

Squeaky party destruction finger up the bum time

Batten, who has risen to the heights of mediocrity despite the charisma bypass operation, has told anyone prepared to listen “I have appointed Tommy Robinson to be a personal special adviser on two subjects which he has great knowledge. It is not necessary for him to be a party member in order to assist me in this role. I am looking forward to working with him”. Batten’s delusion where Lennon is concerned knows no bounds.

As the Guardian has reported, “Robinson has convictions for assault, drugs and public order offences, and has been jailed for mortgage fraud and for using someone else’s passport to travel to the US. He is awaiting a decision on his contempt of court retrial … Batten has previously spoken at his rallies, and compared Robinson to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela”. You can’t get much more deluded than that.

But one Kipper still harbours an even greater delusion: that UKIP can actually recover from Batten’s disastrous lurch to the far right. As the BBC has reported, “UKIP should ‘get rid’ of leader Gerard Batten for appointing Tommy Robinson as an adviser, says Nigel Farage. Hiring the ex-English Defence League leader ‘goes against all the things I did as [UKIP] leader’, Mr Farage said. He accused Mr Batten of ‘dragging us in a shameful direction’ - some UKIP members have opposed allowing Mr Robinson to join the party”.

Farage, of course, is full of wind and piss: as Matt Kelly pointed out, “all very well for @Nigel_Farage to repudiate UKIP links with Tommy Robinson, but Farage’s right-hand man at UKIP, @RaheemKassam has been one of Robinson’s biggest cheerleaders for years. You sleep with dogs Nigel, you get fleas”. Peter Jukes added “Completely absurd. Farage is lying. His buddy Bannon said Yaxley Lennon is the ‘backbone of Britain’”.

But Mr Thirsty has built a career on lying loudly and confidently, and has stated “I will be writing to the National Executive Committee of the party today and urging that we have a vote of no confidence in Gerard Batten as leader. That we get rid of him. We can have one last go at getting rid of somebody who as leader is dragging us in a shameful direction”.

I em not a racialist but, und zis is a big but ...

For those opposing both Lennon and Farage, this is one of those Hamilton versus Fayed moments - you wish they could both lose. In any case, this isn’t about UKIP, but a clash of over-inflated egos. As the Guardian noted, “Critics of Robinson’s actions describe him as an opportunist who has used the grooming issue to promote a more general far-right, anti-Islam agenda and push his personal brand”. It’s all about himself.

Likewise, UKIP with Farage in charge was all about himself. So just as the Brexit deal - ideal UKIP subject matter - becomes front and centre of political debate, the Kippers look as if they are about to tear themselves apart. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving party.

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