Tommy Robinson quits EDL

Having created an organisation of racial and religious hatred, Tommy Robinson and his co-founder Kevin Carroll, have decided to leave the English Defense League citing that the organization has become too extreme.

Many reading this news will quite rightly be suspicious and skeptical. After all, it was only a few months ago when Robinson and Carroll were seeking to make allies across Europe with Far Right groups even more extreme and violent than some of their own thuggish supporters here in the UK.

Robinson’s disillusionment perhaps comes from the fact that his potential big moment after the horrific death of Drummer Lee Rigby came to nothing. Robinson, like BNP leader Nick Griffin, tried to use the tragedy to divide a nation, and in many ways begin a race war. The family of Lee Rigby, and the nation as a whole roundly rejected their proposition. Robinson, therefore, found himself increasingly isolated from the very people -white working class- he claimed he represented.

Now Robinson has reportedly walked away from the organization he started. The counter-Islamist extremism organization, The Quilliam Foundation, is stating that they played a role in convincing Robinson that non–violent protest is the best way forward.

Quilliam chair and co-founder Maajid Nawaz said:

We have been able to show that Britain stands together against extremism regardless of political views and hope to continue supporting Tommy on his journey”.

Time will tell whether or not Robinson has had a ‘road to Damascus’ moment, but in four short years he and his organization have caused untold misery and pain with their politics race and religious hatred.

Simon Woolley