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Myths, lies and the strange rise of ‘Tommy Robinson’
LOUISE RAW looks at the reality behind the far-right activist of many identities
Tommy Robinson arrives at the Old Bailey in September 2018

WE used to no-platform fascists in this country: now, it seems, we build them platforms.    

At the Old Bailey on the 23rd of last month, far-right poster boy Tommy Robinson strutted and fretted his hour upon the stage — in this case, a literal one, complete with powerful sound system audible streets away, and constructed right outside the Central Criminal Court by permission of the City of London’s Corporation and Police. 

All the flotsam and jetsam of the far right were gathered for Robinson’s mini-Nuremberg moment: Ukip and zionist flags flew high, and I saw too the emblem of the White Pendragons, the bizarre white supremacist group which brought a home-made gallows to Sadiq Khan’s speech to the Fabian Society in January, and tried to perform a “citizen’s arrest” on him. 

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