The clearest sign yet that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson, and UKIP are planning to link up was given in an online interview with Yaxley-Lennon posted yesterday.
Speaking on Tousi TV, the online channel of right-wing commentator Mahyar Tousi, he was asked what he thought of UKIP and its leader Nick Tenconi. He said:
“UKIP are far stronger than any other political party. I believe that Nick has shown great leadership, …
“You need a people’s party that is not going to kick the working class and not going to deem them as racist and far right which Nigel Farage has done multiple times.
“I like UKIP. I actually messaged the lads. It’s just… my life has gone chaotic. I face prison this week, I’m trying to finish a film.
“I messaged Nick, and I messaged Ben Walker, to have a discussion with them”
Robinson makes clear he has no time for Reform UK because leader Nigel Farage does noit oppose ‘demographic replacement’ and is not committed to ‘mass deportations’.
“I thought let Reform be the political party and us be the cultural movement But I saw Nigel Farage’s cowardice in the week of taking over, saw him select the Muslim who funded him the most money, to be the chairman and I thought ‘Well you’re never going to deal with the Islamisation of this nation’.
“So there does need to be a political party that pushes them so maybe UKIP’s that solution.
“I hope to meet the boys when I get back if I’m not in jail.”
UKIP posted the clip online, welcomed Yaxley-Lennon’s endorsement, and said, laughably, “UKIP stands firmly with Tommy and the British working class”.
Searchlight first suggested the possibility of such a link up back in August. There were a number of indications, the main one being a warning from Lois Perry, when she resigned as leader during the general election campaign.
She claimed that there was something “sinister” going on “at the very top of the party” where some people, “wanted to go after quite an extreme viewpoint”. Specifically, she said, they wanted a tie-up with Yaxley-Lennon.
UKIP leadership figures were also involved in a planning meeting for Yaxley-Lennon’s 27 July ‘Uniting the Kingdom’ march and rally in London, where other future co-operation was also discussed.
At that event, Tenconi was allowed to pose at the head of the march, looking for all the world like he was leading it.
Earlier, in March, Yaxley-Lennon was warmly welcomed to a UKIP event in Llanelli by the fraudster Dan Morgan and the former trade union buster, Stan Robinson, local UKIP activists who also run the extremist Voice of Wales online channel. Robinson is the Party’s Lead Spokesperson for Wales and was a candidate in the general election.
The irony, of course, is that in 2018 UKIP was plunged into crisis when then party leader Gerard Batten appointed Yaxley-Lennon as the party’s ‘grooming’ adviser. Batten, who had only recently become leader, was passionately anti-Islam and wanted to move the party firmly in that direction. The association led to a wave of resignations – including most of its 24 MEPs – from the party before Batten was removed and the plan abandoned.
Ironically, UKIP’s present chairman Ben Walker was heavily involved in engineering Battens’ removal but is now a key player welcoming the likes of Yaxley-Lennon and other extreme right wingers and Islamophobes back into the party.
