By Stephen Castle
London: Tommy Robinson, Britain’s best-known far-right and anti-immigrant agitator, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for defying a court order by repeating false claims about a teenage Syrian refugee who had successfully sued him for libel.
Robinson appeared in court and admitted to breaching a High Court order in 2021 that barred him from repeating the libellous allegations.
In announcing the sentence, Justice Jeremy Johnson said that no one was above the law.
British far-right activist Tommy Robinson in London in 2019.Credit: AP
“The breaches were not accidental or negligent or merely reckless,” he said, according to Reuters. “Each breach of the injunction was a considered and planned and deliberate and direct and flagrant breach of the court’s order.”
Robinson, 41, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was the founder of the English Defence League, a nationalist, anti-Muslim group known for its violent street protests in the late 2000s and 2010s.
He had returned to Britain last week after several months abroad and turned himself in on Friday at a police station in Kent before his court hearing in Woolwich, a town in south-eastern London.
The sentencing came two days after thousands of his supporters took to the streets of London for a rally that prompted a large counter-demonstration. Both events were mostly peaceful, with a heavy police presence and just a handful of arrests.
Supporters of Tommy Robinson attend a far-right march organised by him under the name “Uniting the Kingdom” in London on Sunday. A counter-protest was organised by Stand Up To Racism.Credit: Getty Images
Robinson had been until recently a marginal figure on the far-right fringes of British politics. He was banned from Twitter in 2018 for breaching its rules on “hateful conduct” and his accounts on Facebook and Instagram were suspended the following year for repeatedly breaking rules on hate speech.
But after Twitter, now renamed X, was bought by Elon Musk in 2022, Robinson’s account was reinstated, giving him a new platform. Musk responded to one of Robinson’s posts this year, giving it two exclamation marks.
A video posted by Robinson called Silenced which discusses the libel case he lost, has had 55 million views. The judge said his sentence could be cut by four months if he showed the court that he had taken steps to take the offending film down. But, the judge added, “the defendant has not shown any inclination to comply with the injunction in the future.”
Protesters carry placards as they take part in a counter-demonstration to a far right pro-UK rally endorsed by Tommy Robinson, in London on Sunday.Credit: AP
Robinson also repeated the libel in interviews and admitted other breaches. “It is a continuing breach, the material is still out there and some of it is under the defendant’s control,” Aidan Eardley, speaking for the prosecutors, told the court.
Robinson’s defence lawyer, Sasha Wass, said his client accepted his culpability but had acted as he did “because he passionately believes in free speech, a free press and the overwhelming desire that he has to expose the truth.”
He has recently cultivated connections with right-wing groups in the United States, appearing on media outlets such as Fox News and the Infowars website, and received funding from a conservative US research institute, the Middle East Forum. The former leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, who was imprisoned for his role in the January 6, 2021, attacks on the US Capitol, called him an inspiration.
When three children died in a stabbing attack at a dance class in Southport, England, in August, Robinson was accused of helping foment the riots that followed in several locations around the country.
On Friday, Robinson was charged with violating the Terrorism Act 2000 for allegedly refusing to provide his mobile phone access code to police when asked to do so.
But the case heard overnight related to the repetition of false claims Robinson made about a teenage Syrian refugee, Jamal Hijazi, who was assaulted at a school in northern England.
Hijazi sued in 2021 and a judge found Robinson guilty of libel, ordering him to pay £100,000 ($197,000) in damages as well as the teenager’s legal costs. The judge said Hijazi “became the target of abuse which ultimately led to him and his family having to leave their home, and the claimant to have to abandon his education.”
The court also issued an injunction ordering Robinson not to repeat similar allegations against Hijazi. However, a film doing so was aired at a far-right protest in London in July.
Robinson has several criminal convictions and has served four stints in prison, including in 2005 for assault, in 2012 for using someone else’s passport to travel to the United States, in 2014 for mortgage fraud and in 2018 for contempt of court.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.