Tommy Robinson will stand as Independent MEP
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The former leader of the English Defence League announced the move ahead of an event he’s planning to hold for his supporters tonight in Manchester.
He said his ‘working class’ supporters would send the ‘elite’ a ‘message they’ll never forget’ if he was elected on May 23.
“They’re laughing at us. All of them — Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn, the European Union bureaucrats. 17.4 million of us voted for Brexit, but they don’t care about people like us. They’ve tried to silence us, and they took away our democratic rights by betraying Brexit.
“The election on 23rd May is how we fight back. Put me right inside the EU and they won’t know what hit them. They’ll long for the days when it was just Nigel Farage.”
It comes after community leaders in the Wythenshawe area of Manchester say the EDL founder Tommy Robinson is not welcome there. A letter signed by the area’s MP and a number of religious leaders of different faiths states that Mr Robinson’s views have no place in their community: Maybe he isn’t welcome in their bourgeois bubble, but they are not the whole community.
A comment to MP Mike Kane’s tweet
Replying to @MikeKaneMP @MikeStuchbery_ (a failed school teacher and professional ‘anti-fascism’ campaigner)
You don’t decide who is and isn’t welcome. The people do. The same people your class spits on at every possible occasion.
Mr Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, plans to hold a barbecue for supporters on Thursday evening.
Interestingly, I know people who have received Facebook bans for mentioning his name, posting a photograph, or a piece of video. Maybe his new name, as dubbed by the press, ie Mr-Robinson-whose-real-name-is-Stephen-Yaxley-Lennon, would be more acceptable?
Photograph E Weatherwax Whitehall March 2019