For the past decade Stephen Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) has been Britain’s best known far-right extremist, known primarily for his vitriolic islamophobia.
However, over the past three years he has been on a political journey. While anti-Muslim hatred remains central to his politics he became increasingly conspiratorial during the global pandemic.
Whether it was a genuine move or a contrived attempt to tap into the rapidly growing conspiracy theory scene remains unclear but his social media timelines have been full of medical misinformation, anti-vaccine content and COVID-19 conspiracy theories for the last two years.
In October 2021 Lennon travelled to Dresden to address a far-right PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamicisation of the Occident) demonstration giving his most conspiratorial speech to date. He talked of the “globalist plan for a one world government” and claimed that World Economic Forum is behind the “replacement” of indigenous Europeans.
It’s well known that the term “globalist” can sometimes be coded antisemitism, a reference to the centuries old conspiracy theory that Jews secretly run the world. However, Lennon has spent his whole political career claiming he is not antisemitic.
While leader of the English Defence League there was a small Jewish Division. In 2016 Lennon visited Israel and as recently as May 2021 he attended a pro-Israel demonstration in London, draping himself in the Israeli flag. His attendance was quickly and roundly condemned by leading figures within the Jewish community.
For Lennon, it was simple: he doesn’t like Muslims so he does like Jews.
However, as HOPE not hate and others have long been warning, susceptibility to conspiracy thinking can be a gateway into darker territories, including more extreme ideas such as conspiratorial antisemitism.
It now seems that Lennon is another example of someone who emersed himself in conspiracy theory content during the pandemic and has now gone far enough down the rabbit hole that he has begun to believe the ancient and dangerous antisemitic myth of supposed Jewish control.
In recent weeks Lennon has been repeatedly teasing that he will publish his thoughts on the Kayne West antisemitism scandal. Now known as ‘Ye’, West went on a series of antisemitic tirades that were widely condemned around world, rightly leading to him being dropped from a lucrative deal with Adidas.
In late October Lennon did a short livestream where he explained he was working on a long article unpacking the Ye situation where he would outline his thoughts on supposed Jewish influence. He has now published it on his Urban Scoop website. Titled ‘Tommy’s Statement: The Jewish Question’, it is much more extreme than expected.
While accepting that Ye used “imprecise” language about Jews, and at pains to say he was not talking about “all Jews”, Lennon’s long and rambling article is full of conspiratorial antisemitism about supposed Jewish influence.
It opens with a long attack against the American-based Jewish organisation the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a favourite target of antisemites.
He describes the ADL as a “racially charged, far-left, anti-white self-serving organisation.” Importantly, he attacks it for criticising the ‘White Lives Matter’ slogan, tapping into the longstanding antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jews are secretly trying to undermine and weaken the white race.
However, the main part of the article is dedicating to proving why Ye’s comments about Jewish control of the media and Hollywood are essentially true. “[W]e should be able to discuss this elephant in the room now that Kanye has opened the door, and because its firmly in the public consciousness,” writes Lennon.
“[W]hy is there such an appetite to label or hate ALL Jews? It’s a fair question. My take is this…” he continues. “There are powerful Jewish people, claiming to be Zionists, who have their fingers on buttons of power in the entertainment industry, in big tech, in mainstream media, in the music industry, in Hollywood and in governments.”
There is another section titled ‘Do Jews control the media?’ where he again says, “There are many, many Jews in positions of high power and influence all over the world, especially in the USA, it’s no secret. But why are they in positions of power?”
His answer is “that Jews (generally speaking, at least the white European Jews) have an average IQ of 110, so inevitably those Jews will rise to the top of corporations, of big business, of big tech, of news networks, in Hollywood, in government etc etc.”
The evidence for this assertion comes from a website called ‘I.Q and Human Intelligence’ which is a racist pseudoscience website that “aims to popularize scientific studies on intelligence, its biological, genetic, evolutionary bases, its social importance and the individual and ethnic differences […] compromise for ideology or political correctness.”
The website links to the infamous Mankind Quarterly journal that has rightly been described as a “cornerstone of the scientific racism establishment.”
While Lennon has always been racist, he has overwhelmingly focused on Islamophobia and sought to avoid explicit and overt racism.
This began to change a few years ago when he began to openly rant against Black Lives Matter, a move that lost him friends and supporters and resulted in him quickly rowing back. He has also always framed himself as a friend of the Jewish people and an ally in their supposed struggle with Islam and Muslims.
However, this new article is by some margin the his most extreme and overt statement of racism and antisemitism. After a decade of consciously claiming he is not racist or antisemitic, Lennon has now openly embraced racial pseudoscience and conspiratorial antisemitism.
Clearly during the Pandemic he has consumed huge amounts of conspiracy theory content and he has finally progressed deep enough into that scene to reach its dark antisemitic and racist core. The only surprising thing is that it has taken so many years for him to finally reach this point but Lennon has clearly gone on a political journey and is now ideologically more extreme than ever.
A Reform Party candidate fantasised about deporting “millions” of British citizens to “rid itself of the foreign plague we have been diseased with”. UPDATE: Reform…
