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Tommy Robinson: Who funds him, is he a Zionist, and did he cause the August riots?

 From a thread on Twitter, via Threadreader, archived here, responding to claims from David Miller and his allies that Israel instigated the recent far right pogroms in England through their agent Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka "Tommy Robinson".  


1/x A thread on “Tommy Robinson”, the riots and “Zionism”, covering Yaxley-Lennon’s funding, his relationship to Zionism and his role in the riots. I’ll try not to make it too long this time…

A. Who funds “Tommy Robinson”?

Some fringe anti-Zionist influencers (many of whom work for Iranian state media and/or are deeply antisemitic), such as David Miller, Lowkey, Richard Medhurst, Nick Fuentes, Anas Altikriti, have blamed the riots on Israel/Zionism…


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…It’s true that in the 2010s Robinson was connected to and funded (in the 10s of $1000s) by a US-centred network of counter-jihadi donors and thinktanks who were aggressively pro-Israel and linked to the Israeli right… theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/d…
timesofisrael.com/why-are-us-pro…
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And it’s true that in the early days of EDL, a tiny number of UK-based Jews (mad right-wing Zionists) were involved in it, including some with tenuous links to the far right “Jewish Defence League”.

Here’s something I wrote back in 2010:

brockley.blogspot.com/2011/10/mental…

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But the main Jewish EDL activist (Brazilian far right wingnut Roberta Moore) was criticised by them in 2011 and quit in 2012. (She had never had a meaningful EDL leadership role anyway; her job was to deflect fascism allegations.)



thejc.com/news/edl-dismi…
thejc.com/news/edl-jewis…

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Lowkey makes a big deal of the name “English Defence League” echoing that of the far right “Jewish Defence League”. He neglects to mention that the EDL took its name from the Welsh Defence League, formed earlier in ’09 by Jeff Marsh. The EDL was named before Robinson got involved


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More importantly, the counter-jihadi network mentioned above is just one among many funding networks Robinson has tapped into, which also include Russian, MAGA, Brexiteers, and tech bros

See this very thorough @BylineTimes investigation by @NafeezAhmed:
In short, “Tommy Robinson” is a clout-chasing grifter who burns through money to feed his appetites. He juggles multiple sources of money.

The idea he’s an Israeli puppet because one piece of his funding jigsaw is “Zionists” is delusional.
B. But “Tommy Robinson” is a Zionist though right?

Yaxley-Lennon is of course pro-Israel and racist towards Palestinians. His all-consuming Islamophobia makes him see Israel as on his side against the Muslim other.

But… 
As this thread details, Yaxley-Lennon has a long history of antisemitism, going back to his political apprenticeship in the deeply antisemitic (and anti-Zionist) BNP:
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For example, in the last five years, he has worked closely with Generation Identity, a fascist group who are deeply antisemitic (and anti-Zionist).

See @heidibeirich for @splcenter: splcenter.org/fighting-hate/…
Or more recently he worked with Gareth Icke, who blames all the world’s evils on “Rothschild Zionists”, to get his libellous film “Silenced” distributed.
In short, his concern for Jews (and indeed Israelis) is skin-deep at best, a cynical con at worst, and his understanding of Zionism is non-existent. 
C. What role did “Robinson” have in the riots?

A key claim from David Miller and his allies is that Yaxley-Lennon is the sole instigator of the riots. Is this right? Does he really have this power?
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No, Robinson is a figurehead and symbol for the movement, but he’s not a leader in the traditional sense. The groups who circulated the calls for action that led to the rioting are decentralised, and augmented by local word-of-mouth, acting autonomously. @JoeMulhall_:
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People don’t riot because one bloke in a hotel ordered them to in a video; they have to be enraged & energised, willing to break the law & lose control in the crowd. It’s a loose network of groups of mates.

[link for previous screenshot:
It’s worth adding that the online groups are full of activists far to the right of Tommy Robinson: hardcore antisemites, who generally blame Muslim migration on Jews and use “Zionist” as a euphemism for Jewish.


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Ok, that’s it. There’s a whole lot more to say about how the riots have deepened some of the splits on the far right between those who prioritise hating Jews and those who prioritise hating Muslims, but I’ll leave that for another thread as this went on longer than intended! 
Good illustration of the complexity of online activity around the far right riots here and ideological diversity of those promoting its messages (which has an even more complex relationship with on the ground physical mobilisation in different local communities):
As this thread got more engagement than o expected, I want to clarify my key point: NOT that we shouldn’t look at the global links within the far right, including with the Israeli right now in power there, BUT that a simplistic narrative of blaming Israel erases key dynamics: 
Specifically, the “Zionists” narrative erases the latent reservoir of racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia seeping thru our society and promoted for decades by mainstream media and politicians, easily triggered by entrepreneurs of outrage whether via the Mail, GBNews or Twitter. 
And the “Zionists” narrative erases the deep well of anti-establishment rage in communities devastated by years of austerity, outrage cynically warped by these elite entrepreneurs of panic.

Read:

@kenanmalik:

@trillingual: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
@kenanmalik @trillingual …This doesn’t mean we should be complacent about co-operation between Zionists and the homegrown far right (eg in attacking pro-Palestine encampments) or when pro-Israel actors promote Islamophobia. But reducing the story to that impedes building a proper anti-fascist response. 
***

Most of my posts on Yaxley-Lennon are filed under the label "EDL", which includes material on its splinter groups and inheritors. This is the most thorough one about Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, and this is another thread that focuses on his antisemitism.
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