Tommy Robinson

Anti-Islam activist and documentarian.

“Tommy Robinson.”

There may be no name more radioactive in British politics.

Since entering the public eye nearly two decades ago, he has courted controversy at every turn. In 2009, he founded the English Defence League (EDL), a single-issue movement motivated by opposition to Islamic extremism. Leaving in 2013, he has since acted as joint-chairman of the British Freedom Party, launched the UK branch of PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West), written for Rebel News, and in 2018, he served as a political advisor to UKIP leader Gerard Batten. For nearly 20 years, he has been the figurehead of a very particular brand of right-wing thought in Britain.

Across this period, he also served several prison sentences, the last of which was completed in May 2025. He is currently on bail for an alleged assault at St. Pancras.

Why did we invite him on?

Tommy is undeniably one of the most controversial guests we’ve ever had, and likely ever will. Hhis actions have drawn ire and support in comparable measure. To his admirers, Tommy is a political prisoner on the front lines of the war for Western values. To his critics, he’s a thinly-veiled bigot with a violent past, seeking to aggrandise his toxic brand.

Which is he? We wanted to find out for ourselves. Like him or loathe him, Tommy is one of the defining political characters of our era. We wanted to know why.

Getting this interview in the can has been anything but straight-forward. Cancellations and rebookings have plagued our mission to get Tommy in the hot seat, and recent events in his life left us wondering if we’d ever make it happen.

But earlier today, we finally sat down across from one another, and we told Tommy that we would let him talk for as long as he wanted.

The conversation clocked in at three hours - the longest, perhaps densest interview in the history of our channel. And this is what happened.

What did we talk about?

”This has been the worst week of my life. If I wanted to fight, I could do it every day. I don’t want to, certainly not a drunk person at the train station. I’ve been accosted, threatened and attacked, and [now] I’m thinking they’re going to throw me in jail - my life is over.”

Perhaps there’s no such thing as a ‘calm day’ in the life of Tommy Robinson. For over a decade, the man has faced scrutiny beyond what most of us can imagine. But we find him in the maelstrom of a particularly explosive period. Out on bail, facing an assault charge, and possibly time behind bars. Tommy declares his innocence, but recognises that events like these are an inevitable part of the life he’s chosen.

”There’s not one single image or video of me being an aggressor. I can’t afford the security Nigel Farage has. I challenge him to walk around without security. I go around on my own … I wish I had security, but unfortunately, there are times where I’ve had to defend myself, and I won’t apologise for that. And I won’t apologise for being a man.”

This is, in some ways, nothing new. Tommy’s in the eye of the storm right now, but this is only the latest development in his story. We wanted to go back to the beginning. Now, he’s an international figure, but his story starts small. He walked us through how he ascended from an ordinary, working-class Lutonian to the figurehead of a political movement, and how the perceived unfair treatment of his town’s native population, as well as the toxic ideas of some emerging extremist factions, motivated him to change his life.

”I took a group of councillors to a playground in Farley Hill in Luton [an area with a predominantly white, working-class population]. It was built in the 1960s, and it was falling apart. I then took them to the Muslim area. They had a 300-grand state-of-the-art park. How come? They’re seen as a regeneration community. Everything’s built for them and nothing’s built for us.”

To our international viewers, the concept of a ‘football hooligan’ may sound alien. But for over a century, its been a British tradition. Fans of a given club form ‘firms’, and will go out to find fans of rival clubs for bouts of mutually-agreed violence. It’s a life Tommy has long left behind, but it’s worth noting that it’s this sort of environment that shaped him. Moreover, it plays a key role in his political work.

A self-described former-MIG (one of the ‘men in gear’), two defining aspects of Tommy’s profile soon came to a head. In his words, as the prominence of Islamism grew in his community, ‘jihadis’ and extremists presented more deserving target of football violence. ”Rather than go and find Chelsea[‘s fans], let’s go to this lot. Let’s shut them down. That’s what it was.”

But why?

Tommy has long been smeared in the mainstream media as a nebuluous bigot - someone with prejudiced views toward all who don’t mirror his inborn characteristics. This, he insists, is a falsehood. He’s quick to defend Sikh and Jewish immigrants, and stresses that even most Muslims in Britain pose no threat to the country. But when extremism took root in his community, he felt he had to respond.

“Islamism is incompatible with Western freedom and democracy … It says in the Qu’ran that [Muslims] should ‘slay the unbelievers.’ That’s the truth, but if you accept that, what are you gonna do? You have four million Muslims here, and billions of Qatari money in the economy. What are you gonna do?”

For that, Tommy is often labelled “far-right”. And not just by typical far-left pearl clutchers; for years, he was persona non grata, even in centre-right circles. Platforms that welcome Douglas Murray used those same open arms to push Tommy aside, despite their shared core beliefs.

It’s hard to not think there’s an element of classism to it. Tommy’s background and brash oration make it easy to dismiss him as a typical ‘National Front thug’, and much has been made about his previous membership of the BNP. How much of that is accurate? On this issue, he’s unflinchingly honest. Despite enlisting, Tommy denies that he was aligned with them, and today, he’s keen to set the record straight.