EDL leader continues to reveal his disturbing attitudes

A series of facts are continuing to come to light, revealing the full scale of English Defence League leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka “Tommy Robinson’s” disturbing attitudes on a range of matters. Yaxley-Lennon’s self-incriminating statements demolish the EDL’s official claims about these issues.

English Defence League leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka “Tommy Robinson”) gave an interview to Adrian Goldberg at BBC Radio West Midlands on 22 October 2011. It's available via Youtube here. Yaxley-Lennon made some particularly self-incriminating statements towards the end:

“The black community and the white community in Birmingham are treated with iron fists. The Islamic community are treated with kid gloves and that’s just the way it is. And it’s not on, You can’t have a two-tier policing system. There can be no master race. And I’m sorry, but there is a master race in certain areas of this country and it’s Islam !”

Therefore, Yaxley-Lennon is now on record as 1) essentially claiming that there are 3 races in Birmingham, namely white, black and Muslims, and 2) describing the religion of Islam as a “race”. Apart from the fact that Yaxley-Lennon's description of what he claims to be the three communities in Birmingham would raise some eyebrows amongst the city’s sizeable Sikh and Hindu populations, his remarks also make a mockery of the EDL's claims that their bigotry isn't racially-motivated “because Islam is not a race”.

The implications of Yaxley-Lennon’s statements are even more disturbing when you bear in mind the following fact: As a result of his speech during the EDL’s demonstration in London on 3 September 2011, Yaxley-Lennon is also on record as publicly accusing “every single Muslim” of collective guilt for 7/7 and publicly making a direct threat against what he terms “the Islamic community” en masse:

“EVERY SINGLE MUSLIM watching this on Youtube, on 7/7 you got away with killing and maiming British citizens, you got away with it. You had better understand that we have built a network from one end of this country to the other end, and we will not tolerate it, and the Islamic community will feel the full force of the English Defence League if we see any of our citizens killed, maimed or hurt on British soil ever again.”

Video footage of the extract above is available here. Yaxley-Lennon's full 10-minute speech is available here. Yaxley-Lennon's speech demolishes the EDL's official claims of being non-violent and “opposed only to extremist Muslims”, and the irrefutable evidence has come directly from the EDL's leader himself.

Regardless of whether Yaxley-Lennon was specifically addressing Muslims on that occasion or whether he was indeed using the terms “Muslim” and “Islamic” as euphemisms for “Asian”, Yaxley-Lennon's sinister statements clearly indicate that he doesn't even regard British “Muslims” as British citizens at all. Not to mention the fact that Yaxley-Lennon also seems to be ignoring -- or strangely ignorant of -- the fact that the British citizens murdered by terrorists on 7/7 included a number of Muslims. So he responds to the deaths of British citizens by.....making threats against millions of British citizens, including the surviving family members of those murdered on 7/7.

- It is also worth bearing in mind that Yaxley-Lennon is on record as stating that he agrees with the opinions of the mass-murdering Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik.

- Yaxley-Lennon's hypocrisy is particularly striking when you consider the fact that he is actually the son of Irish immigrants. Irish terrorists have been responsible for more than 10,000 successful bomb attacks against the British Isles; there have been several further incidents during the past month alone. Yaxley-Lennon’s disgusting statements are the equivalent of someone accusing “every single Irish person” of collective guilt (including Yaxley-Lennon himself) and subsequently making a direct threat against England’s entire Irish population. Considering that Yaxley-Lennon has used the single successful terrorist attack on 7/7 to justify his accusation and threat, the same despicable twisted logic would apply to Yaxley-Lennon literally 10,000-fold. The irony appears to be completely lost on him.

- Yaxley-Lennon has been given a 12-week suspended jail sentence after he was found guilty of violently assaulting one of the EDL’s members during their demonstration in Blackburn. The individual concerned is an ex-member of the British armed forces. The Blackburn rally cost £500,000 to police, and the court heard that Yaxley-Lennon had been in charge of or assisted in the control of 70 such demonstrations nationwide. If the demonstration in Blackburn is an accurate example of the average cost to the British public, it suggests that EDL demonstrations that Yaxley-Lennon has personally been involved with have cost ordinary British taxpayers at least £35 million so far. And that’s before you add the huge financial losses simultaneously incurred by local businesses, during a time of deteriorating economic conditions.

- The EDL leadership have written a “Code of Conduct” for the EDL, which was published in August 2010 via the EDL's official Facebook page. If you Google “EDL Code of Conduct” then you'll be able to read identical information from multiple online EDL sources, but you can also see a screenshot of exactly the same “code” via 1MU here: (you may have to zoom in to read the contents). Readers will already be aware of the EDL's public claims that “the EDL has no members”, a claim that Yaxley-Lennon also publicly promotes, as per his most recent BBC Newsnight interview shortly after Breivik’s terrorist attack. However, the EDL's own official Code of Conduct explicitly & repeatedly refers to its supporters as “Members” a total of 21 times.

- According to Reuters, Yaxley-Lennon is now claiming that he is in discussions with various Far-Right groups in Europe in order to form an “anti-Islamist” (read: anti-“Muslim”) political party by the end of this year.

Jai at Indymedia