Last week Lejla Kuric met the former leader of the English Defence League (EDL) Tommy Robinson. This is what she found out.
Last week I met the former leader of the English Defence League (EDL) Tommy Robinson during a meeting held at the offices of the Quilliam Foundation.
I shook his hand and had a friendly conversation. It was a slightly surreal encounter that would have been unthinkable just over a month ago.
On 9 October 2013, in a surprise move, the EDL’s then-leaders Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll resigned from the controversial street protest movement in order to work with Quilliam, a counter-extremism think-tank founded by former members of the Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir.
This move appears to be the beginning of the end for the EDL and their thuggish street protests as confusion, in-fighting and fragmentation take hold of the movement.
Unsurprisingly, staunch supporters of the dwindling group are angry and feel betrayed.
Surprisingly, this anger is shared by a number of anti-racist groups and many on the liberal left who should – one would have thought – be happy with this turn of the events. In fact, amongst many left-wingers Quilliam were derided as foolish sell-outs, blinded by a desire for money and exposure and consequently duped by Robinson’s cunning.
It is interesting to notice that this narrative is being pushed by the very same people who are often indifferent to Islamist extremism and who are all too willing to turn blind eye to bigotry when it comes from Muslim public personalities.
There are, however, still serious questions and concerns regarding Robinson’s defection from the EDL and the alliance he has forged with Quilliam that need to be dealt with, and the meeting I attended was organised in order to address such concerns.
The meeting began with Robinson explaining how the EDL came about. He asserted that the EDL was initially a response to the extremist organisation Al-Muhajiroun that organised a protest against British armed forces, in which soldiers were insulted and threatened. There was a strong sense of frustration in Luton after this protest since it was felt that nothing was being done about Islamist extremism and that debate was being suffocated by political correctness – “We were gagged” Robinson said.
According to Robinson, he never intended for the EDL to become a racist or anti-Muslim organisation, but the strategy he adopted backfired as anti-extremist rhetoric merged with anti-Muslim rhetoric, thereby attracting racist and neo-fascist elements.
I find this narrative somewhat unconvincing since numerous speakers at these rallies gave blatantly anti-Muslim speeches to rapturous applause, while anti-Muslim chants and comments were commonplace rather than isolated incidents.
When asked why he did not join forces with Muslims fighting Islamic extremism, Robinson said he was not aware of them at the time. His view of Muslims, he affirmed, was distorted by the fact that reactionaries and non-violent Islamists dominated Muslim representation in the media, at interfaith-events and in local government initiatives.
A hijab-clad lady confronted Robinson about anti-Muslim attacks that are increasingly being directed at women like her. Whilst condemning such attacks, Robinson, disappointingly said “Muslim men are also attacking white women”, presumably referring to grooming gangs.
Violence against women should be condemned without the need to make tribal distinction between ‘your’ and ‘our’ women, and Robinson’s use of this argument betrays a reliance on the kind of divisive identity politics he would do well to discard.
Talking about personal cost, Robinson said that he regularly receives violent threats against him and family. At that point I asked Robinson: “While there is no excuse for the threats made to you, don’t you think that it was you who whipped up this level of hostility, where violent threats are commonplace?”. As an example I cited threats he makes in this video clip.
His response was unequivocal. “Yes.” He explained “At the time I thought we need to put pressure on Muslims.”
His straightforward honesty on this issue was commendable.
Could ordinary people – Muslims and non-Muslims – back Tommy Robinson in his stance against Islamist extremism? Yes, but there is a major stumbling block – Robinson’s perceived relationship with anti-Muslim bloggers Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.
Robinson did state that he had cut ties with both of them but when pushed to condemn them in public, he was reluctant and demanded to see evidence of their bigotry.
I still find many of Robinson’s views troubling to say the least. However his reasons for leaving the EDL are commendable. I also share his fears about the widening chasm between some communities.
What really struck me was the fact Robinson was prepared put aside differences and work with Muslims for the sake of community relations in this country. This is not the attitude of a hateful fascist he is often made out to be.
Yes, he has made some regrettable comments in the past but it is unfair to indefinitely punish him for his past when he is moving in the right direction. It is movement we ought to encourage and support.
The commentators complaining about Robinson’s lack of a ‘Damascene conversion’ are missing the point. He has come a long way from a man threatening ‘every single Muslim’ to the man I watched positively engaging with Muslims.
The fact that the former EDL leader, former Hizb ut-Tahrir members, former Jihadists, Muslims, ex-Muslims and others were sitting at the same table openly debating extremism, the role of religion and culture was extraordinary. I would go as far as to say it was even a historic occasion.
This is precisely the kind cutting edge, anti-extremism work this country really needs and, in that regard, the Qulliam Foundation is leading the way.
36 Responses to “The day I met Tommy Robinson”
Dixiemink
No, by “far left” she does not mean the Democratic party. Otherwise she would say “democratic party”. By “far left” she means people like Bill Ayers, rich kid anarchist and unrepentant Pentagon bomber who later launched Obama’s first run for the Senate from his own house, helped write Obama’s autobiography and ran a major educational foundation (the CAC) with Obama for several years – at least if you believe the Wall Street Journal:
Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB122212856075765367
“The Obama campaign has struggled to downplay that association [to Ayers]. Last April, Sen. Obama dismissed Mr. Ayers as just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” and “not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis. Yet documents in the CAC archives make clear that Mr. Ayers and Mr.
Obama were partners in the CAC. Those archives are housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago and I’ve recently spent days looking through them.”
And while I don’t go into the birther thing at all, as a graduate (like Obama) of Columbia Law, I was amazed that he could/ would seal his transcripts and papers from there (and basically everywhere else he went to school). It shocked me at the time. So Geller and many others trying to dig up definitive answers to the who what when where and how questions of Obama’s past really isn’t much of a big deal to me.
The WSJ was wondering why too, for example, in an article entitled
“Obama’s Lost Years”
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB122108881386721289
But Geller does produce some howlers – that I will definitely give you.
James Lovelace
Of course, what the fascist Left don’t like to tell anyone, is what preceded this.
Muslims had attacked people from the EDL demo. Just like muslims have been sent to prison for planning to set off a bomb and to behead people at an EDL demo.
There are videos of that Leicester demo on YouTube, showing muslims running round looking for people to attack. Just like there are videos which show muslims attacking police and random white people in Whitechapel — on a day when EDL cancelled their demo there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7dSCAinfqUk
Let’s remember — muslims rioted in Tower Hamlets in the 1990s just because a BNP councillor was elected. You don’t see riots by non-muslims when muslims get elected to be councillors or MPs, even though Mohammed ended his life telling muslims to kill non-muslims (surah 9 was practically the last thing Mohammed said). Muslims rioted in Oldham and Bradford at the start of the 21st century, then again in Harrow in 2009.
In the entire time EDL has existed, they have not caused the amount of damage that muslims caused in that one riot in Bradford in 2001.
James Lovelace
I lived in a majority muslim area, and my family were the victim of racist violence by muslims, and the police would do nothing about it – not even visit to see the damage. I’ve seen a small group of white men walk through the area (about 4 or 5) and suddenly be surrounded by 20 muslims, which within 60 seconds swelled to them being surrounded by about 100 muslims. I phoned the police, and the police were there within 2 minutes. If the police did not know that this swarming/gang violence was not endemic in muslim communities, they would not have turned up so quickly. They knew that a potential race murder was in the offing, and it would look bad for the muslims (with whom the police are in cahoots, as muslims have told meetings of leftwingers).
Here is an example of such swarming from Tower Hamlets, where 30 muslims were involved in a racist attack on 2 white men: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-501105/Asians-guilty-shattering-mans-skull-race-hate-attack.html
Here is an example of it from Rochdale, where a lone white lad was murdered in the attack: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-100826/Police-fear-new-riots-white-youth-dies-fight.html
The police and the media ensure these kinds of things get an absolute minimum of coverage (like with the racist murders of Kris Donald and Ross Parker). Only Stephen Lawrence is allowed to be remembered as a victim of racist murder. Because he was black. Even though 50% of the victims of racist murders are white (meaning that non-whites are grossly over-represented as the criminals in racist murders). http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/oct/22/ukcrime.race
But hey, let’s base everything on YOUR individual experience, rather than look at the statistics and the hidden history. I defy you to find me any racist murder of muslims by white people in Britain which comes close to the killing of (forgotten) Stephen Lawrence — the muslims cut off his balls, gouged out his eyes, and set him on fire, all while he was alive.
Dixiemink
Turns out they were originally being banned for supporting Israel. Oh, and in this article, she calls TR “the worst kind of traitor” and “a turncoat”.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/01/documents-reveal-british-banned-geller-and-spencer-because-of-their-pro-israeli-views/
So your argument that they were banned for “spreading anti-muslim hatred” falls down as it is now clear that the FO could not find sufficient evidence for that charge alone – otherwise why resort to the multiple mentions of “zionism” and support for Israel? Why indeed.
And, just to make this single article the perfect rebuttal to your idiotic ramblings on this subject, it also turns out that you were flat out wrong with your argument that she and TR are besties.
So, everything you claimed was true turned out to be false.
What else are you wrong about?
Suada
I think Geller’s support for the war criminal Radovan Karadzic, and the genocidal Nazi collaborationist Chetnik movement should place her well beyond the pale of respectable political opinion and into the fringe far-right.
Spencer used to endorse similar views, but he seems to now be backpeddling from them somewhat, as I think fundementally he is embarrassed by them.