Tommy Robinson Had a Weekend from Hell

Last Friday, while another far-right loon was busy making a fool of himself, EDL leader Tommy Robinson was gearing up for a big weekend with the lads. One can only imagine the kind of hilarious, xenophobic banter subjected on whichever Cambridge Wetherspoons was unlucky enough to be deigned the evening's racial-hate hot-spot.

Tommy's been more under the cosh than usual as of late, though. Everything started going dramatically downhill for the guy after the humiliating Walthamstow demo, which saw the EDL beaten to their rally point by counter-demonstrators, preventing them from carrying-out their speeches. Then a series of bizarre confessional videos emerged, in which Tommy moaned about being hated and constantly being picked on by the police. (Stop being a criminal, Tommy – that might be a good start.) Then, at the equally embarrassing Walsall demo a few weeks ago, the Fosters-fuelled EDL in attendance tried to attack the police and break out of their kettle, which just ended up in a load of skinheads covered in blood.

Considering Tommy's right-hand-man, Kevin Carroll, is running in the upcoming Police Commissioners election for the British Freedom Party (a poor man's BNP, if you can imagine such a thing), all this drama was beginning to look a little detrimental to his cause. So Tommy, who was a vice-chairman of the BFP, stepped down from his post, claiming he was going to concentrate on moving towards moulding the EDL into a proper political party. I know – the guy should quit preaching hate and get into comedy; he's hilarious.

With all that in mind – and considering he's still facing criminal charges for fraud – you'd have thought that Tommy might have been on his best behaviour this past weekend. But no, of course he wasn't. The second half of his lads' weekend consisted of him, Kev Carroll, Paul Weston (leader of the BFP) and 50 EDL thugs piling into the back of a removal van and heading to east London with the intention of occupying an unnamed mosque. Not exactly the actions of a Prime Minister in waiting, eh Tommy? Predictably, however, the plan barely got off the ground, as police were laying in wait for the race-hate Dad's Army, pulling their van over on the motorway and arresting them all for suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.

Besides being just about the worst political move Kev Carroll could have made, the intended attack also did a great job of making the EDL look even worse than they had before, damning any hopes of them becoming a political party that people don't instantly take the piss out of. Despite the fact their website's mission statement claims that they're a human rights organisation with absolutely no qualms over your average, law-abiding Muslim, targeting a random mosque clearly proves it's not just Muslim extremists they're after, but all Muslims, regardless of whether they present a threat to whatever deluded ideal of British society these morons are clinging on to.

Rumours quickly spread that there was a mole inside the EDL who'd alerted the police to the occupation plan, but there's an equally good chance that the police have infiltrated the group somewhere along the way.

As if one arrest and suspicions of a traitor within his ranks wasn't bad enough, Tommy's weekend from hell was only just beginning, as he was then arrested on suspicion of assaulting his nemesis, Sayful Islam, in Luton. Although, considering he'd spent most of his time in either the back of a removal van or in police custody, it's looking unlikely that he was directly involved in the assault. That said, once a racist's hate is strong enough, they've been known to adopt the power of omnipotency, allowing them pop up in mosques around the world to happy slap their least favourite Imam, so you never know.

Later in the weekend, Tommy was arrested yet again – this time for entering the US illegally with a fake passport. It transpired that he'd travelled to America last month for some bullshit 'Stop the Islamisation of Nations' conference using a fake passport, rumoured to be the one above (although that hasn't been completely verified). To be honest, though, he could be going under any identity for all we know. The guy's real name in Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – a name that reveals his Irish heritage; something that wouldn't sit too well with his league of mostly English, Protestant supporters – so he changed it to Tommy Robinson. Unfortunately, that name has become synonymous with being a racist criminal, not something particularly helpful when you're trying to get into the US, so he's resorted to employing more fake identities.

While he was released on bail for the other two arrests, Tommy wasn't so lucky with his fraudulent crossing of international borders and has been remanded in custody until January 2013. Also, considering it was a crime committed in the US, there's a possibility that he could be extradited there to face his charges. This poses another conundrum for the EDL, who, when Islamist preacher Abu Hamza was extradited to America two weeks ago on terrorism charges, couldn't get enough of our extradition deal with the Yanks and were vehemently calling for the process to be sped up.

Members complained that Hamza had abused the court system, enabling him to delay his extradition, so you'd have thought – if they had any semblance of foresight or understanding of the word hypocrisy – they wouldn't want Tommy to abuse the same system. But, of course, they obviously don't. They're idiots – we all know that already. According to an official statement on their site, "If Abu Hamza can drag out his fight of extradition to the USA when he is a real terrorist who has committed real terrorism offences, then Tommy 'should' have no problems fighting his corner. That is unless those in charge of our judicial system have a quick fire solution to removing him from the UK? Every one of us is Tommy Robinson." No, EDL, we're really not, thanks.

So, with their leader imprisoned and his deputy banned from entering west London because of his bail conditions, the EDL's hotly anticipated return to Walthamstow could be a total letdown. What a shame. With 53 of the group's most "up for it patriots" banned from east London, the demo looks likely to fail in attracting any serious numbers, and with no one to make any speeches, what's the attraction going to be? A piss up and a fight, or something? Oh yeah, that's exactly why they were planning on going back in the first place. See? They're definitely a proper, respectable political party.

The last Walthamstow demo looked like it had bashed-in, superglued, then cemented the final nail in the EDL's coffin, but it turned out they still had some mosque-occupying life left in them. After this weekend, however, it appears that the only tool they really needed to jam that final nail in was Tommy's thick skull.

As far-right leaders go, Tommy has to be one of history's most short-sighted and criminally incompetent, making Nick Griffin look like the Stephen Hawking of hate-politics. Much like Griffin's recent Twitter debacle, Tommy's own actions over the weekend have arguably done more damage to his group's reputation than any police operation or media set-up ever could, but we'll have to wait until Saturday's Walthamstow march to see if this truly is the end of Britain's most intolerant imbeciles trying to bring an end to "Muslamic law".

Follow Henry on Twitter: @Henry_Langston and keep up to date with all news related content on VICE: @VICEUK_News

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