Tommy Robinson uses racial slurs and boasts about drug use in bizarre video

A leaked video sent to friends by far-right activist Tommy Robinson shows him using racist slurs and bragging about procuring drugs wherever he goes.

In the footage, obtained by The Sun, Robinson says: “No matter where I’ve gone in the world I score... I’ve gone to f***ing Qatar, to Doha, and scored gear on the sesh while they’re all praying. Everywhere, mate, every city I’ve gone to.”

The controversial founder of the English Defence League (EDL) has several criminal convictions, including for cocaine possession, Metro reports.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The video, which was reportedly filmed in the Italian city of Bologna, also shows him calling a taxi driver a “little P**i that drives a car”.

Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, goes on to dub himself “King of the whole Islam race” - which is “quite something coming from one of the main vectors for anti-Muslim rhetoric in the UK”, says HuffPost.

In another bizarre twist, he claims to have spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he refers to as “Benjamin Netanf***ing blah” in the clip. “I got my Zionist card out and said I am a Zionist,” Robinson says, adding: “F**k Palestine.”

The former EDL leader has posted messages on his Facebook account to defend his behaviour in the video. He claims the clip was shared as “banter” between friends in a private group, which he said contained Asian and black people.

He also claims that he was drunk when the video was shot. “I was absolutely steamboated, I don’t even remember,” he said. “It’s cringe.”

And he denies buying drugs in Qatar, despite his filmed boasts. “Does anyone think that Tommy Robinson went to an Islamic country and got drugs and took them?” he said in a live-streamed video shared with his followers.

The row comes as Robinson tries to distance himself from his past links with the EDL and the British Freedom Party.

In November, UKIP leader Gerard Batten controversially appointed Robinson as his adviser on “rape gangs”. Former UKIP boss Nigel Farage criticised the appointment as “shameful” and claimed that the party faces “total and utter marginalisation” for working with a “thug”.

HuffPost suggests that the new video clip exposes Robinson as a “hypocrite”, undermining his supposed disavowment of far-right extremism.

“For all his attempts to rehabilitate his image ahead of a launch into politics, via UKIP, he continues to focus on Muslims, celebrating the fact that he casts a shadow across communities, instilling fear and concern,” says the news site.