Like an amoeba the extreme Right tend to divide and sub-divide. That’s the thing about Fascists, their hatred of people different from themselves rarely holds firm long enough to prevent hatred of themselves flaming up and consuming them all in a ball of self-destruction.
As the Life of Brian might put it, one minute you’ve got the Judean Defence League, the next it’s the Judean People’s Front versus the People’s Front of Judea. Tommy Robinson, aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Andrew McMaster, aka Paul Harris, is a case in point. He left the English Defence League because, he says, he cannot control the neo-Nazis in his ranks. The same motley crew that he’s been attracting into the EDL for four years.
There are suggestions he will set up a new organisation minus the street protesters. Yaxley-Lennon certainly wants to continue the fight against “Islamism” and to this end – and possible others – he has joined forces with the Quilliam Foundation.
Parallel to this, Nick Griffin’s British National Party recently engaged in a major purge of the growing ranks of BNP members discontented that Griffin was not being racist enough. A glance at his Twitter account, however, reveals Griffin remains every inch the small-minded bigot he ever was. But, like the EDL, the BNP rank-and-file always agitate for their leaders to be even more extreme and rebel if they don’t.
The EDL, in large part, drew a following from former BNP supporters who missed the street-aggro of the old National Front. Indeed throughout Yaxley-Lennon’s period in charge the EDL has always been a hive for the most intolerant racists on this island, as every journalistic probe into their murky world uncovered. They’ve even extended a hand to extremists on our neighbouring island with several links to the murderous Ulster Volunteer Force.
Yaxley-Lennon’s claim this week that he was ever the vanguard of righteousness seeking to drive out neo-Nazi infiltrators until finally realising he was fighting a losing battle is completely without foundation. There is not one scintilla evidence that he has played this role within EDL. No instance in which he has publicly criticised the extremist elements within his ranks before this week, and no suggestion that a single neo-Nazi was expelled from the group throughout the entire four years of his leadership. It is but an invention, a cover-story fabricated to bolster his brazen attempt to gain mainstream respectability, ably assisted by Quilliam.
Maajid Nawaz and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon
Maajid Nawaz, one of Quilliam’s leaders, made great play of the comparison between himself giving up Islamic extremism and the journey of Yaxley-Lennon. Yet on BBC Newsnight and throughout a press conference, Yaxley-Lennon time and again refused to distance himself from almost all of his previously expressed views. Aside from a weak ‘apology’ if Muslims have felt intimidated by EDL and a couple of minor clarifications there was absolutely nothing to indicate that he had veered from the path of Far Right ‘thinking’.
As Yaxley-Lennon stressed several times he wishes to continue his fight and it isclear that he hasn’t changed direction, only tactics and strategy. Still on the same road, he has just made a pit-stop to upgrade his car from an old Cortina with the Cross of St George painted on the side to a spanking new Quilliam-issue SUV.
Giving up extremism, or so Nawaz and Yaxley-Lennon would have us believe, means nothing more than swapping those embarrassing boneheaded goons, who chant what they really think on the street, for a sharp suit to gain access to TV studios. Yet the truth is there has been no epiphany for Yaxley-Lennon, no Road to Damascus moment and no enlightenment. Just a makeover.
Access to government finance to tackle Far Right extremism beckons Possibly a book deal, and – who knows – maybe even a movie. Certainly taxpayers cash looks set to flow to Yaxley-Lennon. Nawaz publicly stated his promise to help his man engage with public authorities. It looks like Yaxley-Lennon’s oft-stated financial woes are over. As Keith Lemon might say: “Kerching!”
Ben Quinn, writing in The Guardian, points out the link-up could have benefits for Quilliam too:
Senior figures working in the growing field of the study of counter-extremism and the rehabilitation of former extremists have been viewing its link-up with Robinson as a high-stakes gamble that has raised serious questions about the motivations of an organisation [Quilliam] that has played a particularly controversial role.
Others in the field of counter-extremism studies and advocacy, meanwhile, voiced scepticism about how, around the time that its government funding was drying up, Quilliam appeared to be branching out into focusing on far right extremism.
Yaxley-Lennon (standing, left) listens to Holocaust-denier Richard Edmonds
Yaxley-Lennon still retains links with the American wingnut Pamela Geller, who allegedly pays for his accommodation. The blogger Sunny Hundal – who has followed the EDL closely – says Yaxley-Lennon revealed to Geller that he planned the departure from EDL in part to win sympathy from the judge in his upcoming court case.
Another blogger, Matthew Smith, writes:
The EDL is and always was an extremist group itself under Robinson’s leadership, because it’s an organisation that engages in street violence. Robinson himself was at the demonstrations where obscene slogans about the Prophet (sall’ Allahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) were shouted by large numbers of people, and where their men tried to break through police cordons and damaged surrounding property. He has been arrested a number of times for public order offences related to his EDL activities. The EDL’s core is composed of football “casuals”, or hooligans; Robinson knew this all along.
There have always been racists in the EDL and there have always been tensions between pro- and anti-BNP elements as well as rivalries between supporters of different football clubs.
Quilliam are themselves quite out of their depth with Robinson. They have not previously dealt with violent extremists but rather people with separatist beliefs and ideologies such as salafis and Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Their idea of an extremist is someone who seeks to bring the khilafa back or someone who believes that believing in the evolution of the human species makes you unfit to be an imam.
It is a huge mistake to facilitate Robinson in trying to set up any kind of non-violent anti-extremist organisation, because Robinson’s organisation has never made any distinction between Islam itself and extremists, or between the actions of individual Muslims or small groups of Muslims (e.g. the Luton demo, the murder of Lee Rigby) and of Muslims in general, their demonstrations and slogans being aimed clearly at Muslims in general, and Robinson has also never contributed anything on an intellectual level. I have never seen articles by him printed in a newspaper or magazine, for example.
His “anti-extremist” stance is a very thin cover for an organisation founded on anti-Muslim street violence. So he could not reasonably be expected to lead, other than as a figurehead, any non-violent, non-street-based, anti-extremist organisation — there will likely be someone pulling the strings behind the scenes.
That they should “help” Robinson in setting up such an outfit reflects a lack of courage on their part. They should have simply told him to go away and concentrate on his non-political activities such as the business he runs, or used to run, in Luton.
As Smith says, EDL have always been a bunch of thugs under Yaxley-Lennon therefore is but a vain hope that the “decapitation” of their leadership will lead to their demise. More likely a new head will grow from the stump to run the group very much as Yaxley-Lennon did. It is simply naive to assume the Far Right will combust because one or two of their number have thrown their EDL face-masks in a cupboard and joined a think-tank. Making him ‘respectable’ won’t quell the flames, merely start a neat little log-fire beside the heap of burning tyres.
Yaxley-Lennon has not apologised for threatening “every single Muslim” with “the full force [of the EDL]“, only to try and explain what he meant. The same man has also suggested that violence could stop mosques being built, another alarming comment that is unlikely to be withdrawn by him.
No doubt coaching will avoid similar statements in the future. However the partnership of an unrepentant Far Right extremist and an organisation, Quilliam, who have grown fat on government grants while cheer-leading the ‘Prevent’ agenda of spying on Muslims – which even the Equality and Human Rights Commission acknowledges has had a negative effect on those communities – is an unseemly alliance that will do little or nothing to tackle the problem both parties profess to be concerned about.
Tackling extremism of any kind means addressing the causes and catalysts and winning hearts and minds, not conspiring with officialdom or the media. Reducing racism in working class communities requires investment, opportunities and social housing to remove the ‘scapegoat’ plank of this prejudice, and greater social contact to develop understanding.
We cannot get to grips with Islamophobia while the anti-Islamism drive fails to separate the overwhelming majority of peace-loving Muslims from the handful of extremists, and while the wall of ‘otherness’ divides communities. Neither Yaxley-Lennon nor Quilliam have the grassroots credibility to engage with Muslim or white working class communities now and are principally pleading with the chatterati and purse-string-holders that their background gives them the insight and strategies to tackle extremism.
However what we witnessed last week was almost certainly a routine falling-out within Far Right circles dressed up to look like a grand show. Here was an unrepentant angry young man sold as a reformed figure who, alongside Quilliam, represented the one great hope of solving the problem. Fail to fund us, they seemed to be saying, and watch the streets explode. Yet all awkward questions, especially those that challenged this message, were ducked or fudged.
In truth, despite the pyrotechnics, not much really happened this week. The Far Right will continue to exist so long as the conditions – including a climate of Islamophobia – persist. The government will throw more money at the wrong people in the mistaken hope they have the knowledge and credibility to tackle a misdiagnosed problem. Most Muslims who reject violent extremist will continue to feel vilified, and racists and Fascists will continue to fester under the rocks. Meanwhile Yaxley-Lennon is set to pop-up on our TV screens not as a street protest leader but as a ‘commentator’, and afforded a degree of respect by interviewers hoodwinked by this week’s PR.
The split between those who were pleased or sceptical about Yaxley-Lennon’s defection broke down roughly between those who considered the dynamics of what had actually taken place and those who were simply happy with a seemingly positive headline. I don’t wish either Yaxley-Lennon or Nawaz good luck, rather I wish that a grassroots movements for peace – of which neither can seriously influence – redouble their efforts to bring communities together and challenge prejudice. Activists in this movement may never play centre-stage at a showy press conference but it is their work that stands a much better chance of making progress.
By Lester Holloway @brolezholloway
