Tommy Robinson’s New Year Message January 2012

Luton - Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), the leader of the EDL (English Defence League), has released a video diary message to clear up a few issues and communicate the organisation’s plans for the new year.

In the video diary, which runs for a half an hour, he started by clarifying what happened when he was recently beaten up, at around 2am on Thursday 22nd December 2011, when he was ambushed by three Muslim youths. As a result of this violent attack he ended up in hospital and suffered bruising and swelling of the brain and had to have a CT scan done. He spoke about the BFP (British Freedom Party) and the potential of a party that would be prepared to stand against militant Islam, although there was no formal merger at this stage between the EDL and BFP. He mentioned the specific problems in his hometown of Luton and made the point that the press were reluctant to report what is happening and that the police had not been doing their job properly. Finally, he laid out the way forward for 2012 and spoke about where the planned demonstrations would be and why. He focused on Leicester especially (where the EDL are due to protest on 4th February 2012) given the recent racially motivated case of the Somali Muslim girls attacking an English girl. Following on from earlier video diaries, he again mentioned the two-tier justice system in this country and compared this case to the Emma West ‘Croydon Tram Lady’ case. Although Tommy did not agree with Emma West’s words, he considered it to be unjust that she was sent to prison for just speaking, when the Somali Muslim girls got left off with a slap on the wrist, despite committing a violent physical attack. He mentioned documentaries coming up soon from BBC3 in January – a Stacey Dooley show, who is originally from Luton and Dispatches in February. Sources and Further Information: EDL website BFP website