In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a British far-right activist, Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra). He’s best-known for his role in the far-right, Islamophobic organizations like the English Defence League (EDL) and his close connections to the Kremlin.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was born in Luton and during his youth delved into a life of crime, serving four prison terms between 2005 and 2019. He used several pseudonyms to hide his criminal past, finally sticking to Tommy Robinson.

Tommy joined the fascist and far-right British National Party (BNP) in 2004 but left a year later. The party didn’t allow non-whites to join and was then led by Nick Griffin, who today is better known for sharing video game footage while claiming it’s real.

Tommy was one of the leaders of the EDL, a far-right and Islamophobic organization loosely affiliated with football hooligans.

In 2011, EDL members were convicted of plotting to bomb mosques, and the group also had links to Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Breivik.

Breivik idolized EDL co-founder Paul Ray and even attended one of their rallies in Bradford. Robinson left EDL in 2013, claiming that it had become “too extreme”. Throughout the years, he’s been involved in other far-right organizations like…

…the Hearts of Oak & Pegida UK. In 2018, Robinson was appointed as “grooming gang advisor” to UK Independence Party (UKIP). Nigel Farage, another prominent vatnik, left UKIP soon after this, saying that Tommy was “entirely unsuitable to be involved in any political party”.

Between 2018 and 2020, Robinson was banned from Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok for hate speech and “promotion of hateful ideology”. As is tradition, his account was reinstated on X in November 2023, now getting around 500 million monthly impressions.

Robinson has received over 2 million £ in donations and sponsorships, mostly from foreign sources tied to the Kremlin and Israel. In 2019, Tommy had asked fellow activist Andrew Edge about bank accounts in Russia, allegedly wanting to hide his money.

And as is tradition, Robinson also has strong links to Russia (thanks to @rwdburley for a great thread on this, give them a follow!). Tommy travelled to Moscow and St. Petersburg in 2020. His trip was publicized by Edvard Chesnokov, a deputy editor of Komsomolskaya Pravda.

While in Russia, he also made an episode for Tsargrad TV, a channel owned by Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev. Malofeev is closely connected to Alexander Dugin & was involved in funding & organizing illegal paramilitary groups in Ukraine in 2014.

Konstantin Malofeyev

He was also interviewed by the Kremlin-run RT and Komsomolskaya Pravda, Vecherniaia Moskva, and RIA FAN. The latter was then controlled by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin, and it was directly connected to his troll farm, the Internet Research Agency.

Tommy even had time to do some Assad-apologism, when he said to a Russian YouTuber that “I truthfully believe the Assad chemical attack was total propaganda for a war in Syria, to get the public support to go to war.”

On X, he’s criticized the US aid to Ukraine, attempted to connect ISIS to Ukraine, supported Nigel Farage’s claims that the war in Ukraine was "provoked by NATO“, and even called Ukraine supporters ”nazis".

Oh the irony.

Tommy returned into the spotlight again after the 2024 Southport stabbing, in which 17-year-old Axel Muganwa Rudakubana killed 3 & injured 10 at a dance studio in Southport. Immediately after the attack, disinformation about the identity of the attacker began to spread…

…quickly on social media, originating from a fake news group called Channel3 Now. According to them, the perpetrator was named “Ali Al-Shakati” and he had arrived in the UK on a small boat in 2023. This false report garnered 2 million views before it was deleted.

The channel started posting Russian-language content 12 years ago, but had shifted to reporting US-related news around 5 years ago.

And of course Tommy had to throw gasoline on the fire. He published a video defending the riots and calling for deportation of immigrants.

Around this time, riots erupted around the UK. Robinson shared a list of planned protests on X, and was even invited by Alex Jones to talk about the “English uprising” on InfoWars. On 4 August 2024, he stirred the pot a bit more, posting a false story about…

…“alleged Muslim stabbing of at least 3 women” in Scotland. The attacker was white and local to the area.

You’d think that Tommy would also take part in the riots, but “unfortunately” he was not available — he’d fled the UK on the eve of a major legal case against him.

Daily Mail had found out that Tommy had established his new headquarters into an all-inclusive five-star hotel in Cyprus. His main activities included posting provocative videos and later calling the violence that erupted during the riots “absolutely fucking ridiculous”.

Tommy’s provocative posts haven’t gone unnoticed on X, and even the platform’s owner has interacted with him. A few days later Elon made another comment on the UK riots, suggesting that “Civil war is inevitable” — a claim he had done many times before dating back to 2023.

As most of you know, Russian disinformation machinery with their troll and bot farms has been instigating “race war” in Europe and in the US for a long time, and using people like Tommy (who is also funded by US pro-Israel groups) to do that is not a new strategy.

At the same time, both Russia and Belarus are flooding the EU with immigrants through their borders while providing financial support to populist anti-immigration parties around the EU.

Migration Bomb

The immigration problem in Europe and the US is very real, but it shouldn’t be resolved with riots and violence. People like Robinson are paid generously to provoke these incidents, and currently the most popular platform to spread their hate is Elon Musk’s X.

You can now pre-order my upcoming book (Fall of 2024) “Vatnik Soup — The Ultimate Guide to Russian Disinformation” from here:

The Book | Vatnik Soup