Tommy Robinson Has Left The Building

Little has been heard of late from Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, partly due to his having been banned from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for peddling hate speech, which of course he vigorously denies. But we do know that, despite his penchant for rocking up on doorsteps in the dead of night loudly demanding a “polite conversation” (yeah, right), he is a victim, honestly.

So it should have come as no surprise to hear from Lennon, who is supposedly on the island of Tenerife, telling his loyal followers that he is indeed a victim, but the Scary Muslims™ are not the ones wot done it. “I was due to be coming back for a demonstration on Saturday”, he began. “[but] there’s something I haven’t told everyone”. Do go on.

“I had [an] incident, quite a few weeks ago, with an arson”. An arson? Or was it just another case of his pants being on fire? But there is more. “I do have the video of everything, but … it was targeted against my property, well, not my property, against my wife’s property [!] … at that point we left the country straight away”. So it was a few weeks ago, but he hasn’t said anything about it until now? Tell us more.

“I’m looking at relocating my family, which is hard to do … I was due to be flying back for a demonstration … with this 14 day quarantine, if I fly back, I probably won’t get back out”. Eh? Carry on. “It wasn’t Muslims that done this, it was after all the BLM stuff, I think I know who it was [he said he had a video, so there should be no ‘think’ about it] … the demonstration’s still on, I’ll be doing a speech, it’s still on, in London”.

This is what's coming next

The Met will be so grateful. Then comes the bit that doesn’t make sense. “My kids and family are out here … I literally drove out here with them”. Ri-i-i-ight. That’s quite a drive: if Lennon is on Tenerife, that would mean driving south through France, then across Spain from its northern border to the port of Cádiz in the country’s south-west. Followed by a long ferry journey to Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Did he really do that?

And you know what’s coming next: the inevitable appeal for money. One Tweeter had seen it all before: “Saw Tommy Robinson trending. A new grift. ‘Arsonists tried to burn down my house, sorry my wife's house" so I'm moving to another country. Translation. I'm trying to hide my assets and legging it ahead of a libel payout. Please send money’”.

John O’Connell of Far Right Watch has detailed some of Lennon’s money-making schemes, the six he specifies having raised £259,000 with not much to show for it. Then there are the books, the attack on Panorama, the rallies and the rest. Safe to say that Lennon is skilled in causing the money to roll in, but less good at explaining where it goes after that. Hence his being regarded as a Grade-A grifter.

But good to see that another ardent Brexiteer wants to make use of freedom of movement before it all comes to an end at the turn of the year. The bad news for him is that being out of the EU won’t stop the authorities in the UK, and indeed lawyers and debt collectors, coming after him in the event he gets turned over for defamation later this year.

The grift of Stephen Lennon was for a time, but not for all time. Sad, really.

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