On the 13th September, a number of professing Christians, identifying as “Patriot Pastors” joined the Unite the Kingdom rally organised by Tommy Robinson with some participating from the platform. When other Christians have raised concerns about this, we received a lot of push back. Initially we told that these people were simply joining the rally in order to witness to the crowds, then we were told that marching with the crowd might be seen as identifying with the same hopes, dreams, fears and grievances as the crowd but did not mean that they were identifying with the event organiser, even though a number of them were given a platform. However, it wasn’t long before we were being told emphatically that we were being unfair to Robinson himself. We had to recognise that he was on the way to professing Christian faith, if he hadn’t already.
Finally, we’ve been told by one person, Aaron Edwards:
“”Much of the vitriol shown to Tommy Robinson seems utterly bizarre. When I first came across him a few years ago, I expected to hear awful things in his speeches and interviews, but I only ever heard a reasonable but salty and impassioned Englishman who opposed Islamism, exposed political and journalistic corruption, and was unusually unwilling to back down under pressure. There was salty language and a combative spirit, for sure, but I waited to hear the supposed moments of fascist hatred which never seemed to arrive. If anything, it was obvious that he has always been treated this way by the established institutions—including the mainstream media—precisely because they are directly threatened by his approach.”[1]
Now, whenever people supporting Robinson has been challenged by others about the fact that Robinson’s track record includes membership of the BNP, being a co-founder of the EDL and then numerous criminal convictions, his fall back response has to some extent been that these are things from the past and we should not just judge him from them but allow for the possibility of repenting. However, Edwards moves into the territory of suggesting that Robinson may always have been maligned and unfairly, perhaps even unjustly treated when he says
“If anything, it was obvious that he has always been treated this way by the established institutions—including the mainstream media—precisely because they are directly threatened by his approach.”[2]”
This is deeply concerning because first, Robinson’s prior reception by the media came when he was a member of the BNP and leader of the EDL. Was he at that time maligned in Edwards’ opinion? Were the courts and the police involved in this too?
However, let’s stick with the original presumption and make allowances for the possibility of change on Robinson’s part. I’ve been challenged by a number of people as to what problem we might have with what Robinson says and does. Edwards has not been alone in recent conversations in insisting that they
“only ever heard a reasonable but salty and impassioned Englishman who opposed Islamism, exposed political and journalistic corruption, and was unusually unwilling to back down under pressure”
So, what I have done in this article is stick closely to one recent interview given by Robinson to South African businessman Rob Hersov.[3] I want to pick up on three specific things here.
First, early in the interview, Hersov asks Robinson whether things are better or worse in the UK than in South Africa under the ANC which he identifies as anti-white as well as anti other, non-black ethnic groups. Robinson responds
“It’s anti-white anti British here. In fact, the only people getting accelerated or elevated here are migrants. Our Government care more about are Pakistanis, Afghanis, Iraqis than they do about British people.”[4]
So, the first thing to notice is that Robinson sets things up in terms of white English or British people (he jumps between the two) being an ethnic group under threat, a threat that he insists needs to be resisted and responded to with a cultural revolution where the people take back power. He sets those white British people up in competition with other ethnic groups.
He argues that this is because the Labour party has concluded that their future lies demographically with Islamic people [5] because their populations are increasingly Muslim. This prompts Hersov to ask if all the major cities have Islamic mayors. [6] Robinson affirms that this is mostly true. This was rather surprising to hear. Obviously Sadiq Khan is mayor of London but the other metro mayors, Andy Burnham (Manchester), Richard Parker (West Midlands including Birmingham and Wolverhampton) who succeeded Andy Street, Tracy Brabin (West Yorkshire including Bradford and Leeds). Steve Rotherham )Liverpool City Region) and Kim McGuinness (North East including Newcastle) are fairly obviously not Muslim.
They go on to discuss grooming gangs. Robinson interjects:
“What they call grooming gangs which is a rape jihad.”[7]
Note, that he moves beyond a term which perhaps understates the severity of what has happened in a number of cases. The term “grooming gang” may suggest that girls were simply drawn in and prepared for inappropriate relationships and misses the force of the violation done to them. However, he adds the word “jihad” indicating that this is an intentional act of war. Now, rape has been used as a cruel weapon during war but I am not aware of any evidence suggesting that there is this kind f racial/political/military intent to the gangs. Robinson then adds:
“Muslim men make up 3% of the British population. They are responsible for 90% of the convictions of groups of men who rape children.”[8]
I don’t know where he gets his data from. A report in 2017 found that 85% of grooming gang convictions were men of Asian origin. However, that reported noted a distinction between two categories of groups that targeted sexually. The first type were those who targeted based on vulnerability roughly equating to grooming gangs and in those cases, the majority were Asian. However, the second group targeted specifically on age (children), in other words paedophile rings and in that category, 100% of offenders were white. Of course, what is not talked about is whether or not convictions replicates instances or whether some crimes may go unreported, under-reported or categorised differently. Nor, does Robinson include in his figures examples of individual targeting of children either by strangers, trusted persons or within the home. Therefore, Robinson offers a headline to create an impression that distorts our view of what is going on.
Why does this matter? Well, it matters because what Robinson is doing is telling the story in a particular way, selecting the data which characterises a specific ethno-cultural group (Pakistani Muslims) negatively, as a threat, a predatory danger. They are deliberately targeting our children with sexual violence in order to fulfil Jihad. Now, we cannot ignore that many people over time, from Jack Straw to Sarah Champion have raised concerns about whether specific cultural factors have been at work. However, what that might show is how culture affects the way in which sin and crime happen. What we cannot say is that one ethno-cultural are more sinful, more evil, more dangerous than others.
Further we should not conflate “the majority of x type crimes are committed by y people” with “the majority of y people are x type criminals.” What that is to do is to hold a whole community culpable and to stereotype most, or even all on the basis of what a small minority do. It would be the equivalent of saying that because there is was a prominence of English football hooliganism in the 1980s that all or most English football supporters are also hooligans or indeed that hooliganism characterized our culture.
There is then a discussion about “good immigrants” and “bad immigrants”. According to Robinson and Hersov, the good ones are those who integrate and assimilate. Robinson argue Sikhs, Hindus and Jamaicans have assimilated.[9] Note that he still insists that whilst “per se it works, it has to be in controlled numbers”[10] All numbers are too big and need addressing but immigration has worked for all other communities because they have assimilated[11]
“They are proud to be British”
He talks in terms of their “children flying the flag.”[12]
“But the Pakistanis… You can be third, fourth generation. It’s the Pakistani flag.”[13]
He adds:
“There’s no integration or assimilation from any Islamic community. I mean none.”[14]
And further he claims:
“Go through Luton and find me any Muslim with a non-Muslim unless they are selling them drugs or raping them. You won’t.”[15]
Whose fault is all this? Well he answers as follows.
“It’s them and its us. Now we didn’t create that.”[16]
There are a number of statements there which may be intended as hyperbolic but are simply not true. It is not the case that no Pakistanis are integrating with wider society and his claim that they only mix to rape and sell drugs is untrue and offensive. By the way, you will pick up that whilst he has talked in general about Muslims and Islam, it becomes clear by this point that his specific issue is with Pakistanis and those of Pakistani origin, they are the problem to him.[17]
Again though, whilst there are issues around integration and assimilation for Pakistani immigrants and that’s long been a concern in places like Bradford and Birmingham, we need to correct three misrepresentations here. First, that it is exclusively a Pakistani-Muslim issue. There are higher concentrations of Punjabi Sikhs in some places such as Smethwick and some parts of Manchester and London are predominantly Afro-Caribbean. Secondly, Robinson overlooks other factors such as that often immigrants arrived together from communities and cultures, sometimes from poorer or more rural communities and that they had to take the accommodation available to them often in poorer, less desirable areas. What we tend to see is that there is migration out from those areas leading to integration that accompanies increased prosperity. Thirdly, when Robinson places the blame on the so called “bad immigrants” for failing to integrate, he denies host responsibility and ignores significant experience of rejection and racism that put up barriers to integration.
Robinson then talks about NGOS engaging with issues around racism and fascism. He claims that people are paid to make complaints and that there is heavy, external financing of this. When asked who funds anti-fascist efforts like hope not hope he responds that they are
“funded by George Soros…all of them”[18]
George Soros is frequently named in conspiracy theories about a supposed shadowy and wealthy cabal that controls what is happening around the world. “Conspiracy theories that unite antisemitism and Islamophobia.[19] It is important to state here that use of conspiracy theory code does not mean that a person themselves is anti Semitic per se. There may be various explanations as to why and how they have picked up the language. It does mean however that the code is being used and spread whether unwittingly or intentional. Note also that this fits in with the argument found in Robinson’s book “Manifesto.” The Amazon blurb for that reads:
“or decades the political class have openly planned to replace the indigenous people of Europe and in Manifesto we focus on how they are doing this in the UK. To ensure no-one disturbs their plans the elite manufacture a mythical far-right, when in truth it is the elite 1% who run a Fascist system of state-control, censorship and discrimination. Whenever someone has publicly addressed what is going on, the ruling class set about to destroy that person. We show how the elitist 1% have openly manipulated democracy to subjugate the masses, their elitist discussions carried on in plain sight for over a century, while they distract the masses with unimportant nonsense. The 1% knowingly plan to bring about another global conflict and in the aftermath they will end up in control of the world’s resources and financial systems:
What we can sum up from this interview is that Robinson:
- Talks in terms of a white ethnic group and a nation under threat.
- Whilst he uses the language of religious danger, it becomes clear that he sees things in terms of a specific ethnic threat.
- He uses the known code language of conspiracy theories. Specifically reference to George Soros is known antisemitic cod. It may be said unwittingly by him but we should still have a problem with the language and want to correct it.
It is worth restating again that this is from one of his most recent interviews. It is not based on things he was saying 10 or 15 years ago, or even 5 years ago. It’s current. Note too that this is not impassioned rhetoric from a speech at a rally but part of a reasoned argument during a friendly interview. Those three themes all link into an ethno-cultural nationalism approach. It would be concerning if Christians were hearing those specific themes and arguing that there is nothing to concern us about what Robinson is saying.
[1] This is from the blurb on Edwards’ Facebook page introducing an article “Is Tommy Robinson Welcome at Your Church?” I think this may be from the article but elements of it are behind a subscription paywall.
[2] This is from the blurb on Edwards’ Facebook page introducing an article “Is Tommy Robinson Welcome at Your Church?” I think this may be from the article but elements of it are behind a subscription paywall.
[3] INTERVIEW: Uniting The Kingdom | Tommy Robinson & Rob Hersov
[4] {01:50
[5] [3:00}
[6] [3:20}
[7] [4:10}
[8] [4:2-}
[9] [5:50]
[10] [5:55}
[11] 6:10]
[12] [6:25}
[13] [6:30}
[14] [6:40]
[15] [6:48]
[16] [6:55]
[17] [11:10]
[18] [14:05}
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