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Zarah Sultana calls out ‘racist, sexist criminal’ Tommy Robinson

On 2 October, Your Party’s Zarah Sultana expressed sympathy with the victims of the synagogue attack in Manchester. As an advocate for Palestinian liberation, Sultana has subsequently been attacked by elements of the British media and political classes, who are arguing that opposition to Israel’s genocide is an anti-Semitic position.

On this issue, several mainstream politicians and journalists are aligned with far-right figures such as Tommy Robinson, with Sultana responding to his criticism as follows:


Opposing violence in all forms

As Sultana and others have highlighted, opposing genocide and opposing terror attacks are compatible positions:


Robinson, meanwhile, used the terror attack as a cudgel to attack his critics:


Robinson references Nick Lowles of HOPE not hate. The anti-extremist group reported the following on Robinson in their case file on him (using his real name ‘Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’):

Stephen Lennon is the best-known far-right extremist in Britain.

Having founded and run several well-known anti-Muslim street movements, he has rebranded himself a far-right “journalist” but is able to attract tens of thousands of people to his demonstrations.

The English Defence League

Lennon burst onto the far-right scene with the launch of the English Defence League (EDL) in the summer of 2009 following the amalgamation of a number of smaller anti-Muslim street groups, including United People of Luton (UPL) and the British Citizens Against Muslim Extremists (also founded in 2009). The UPL was set up by local football hooligans in response to an al-Muhajiroun demonstration against the homecoming parade of the Royal Anglian Regiment. The leaders of the UPL, including Lennon, were invited to London and, during a meeting with the funder Alan Ayling and his friends, the idea of a national organisation emerged.

In the following video, HOPE not hate highlight five examples of Robinson’s racism, including:

  • His use of racial slurs.
  • Dabbling in antisemitic-coded conspiracies following the pandemic (including a self-penned article titled The Jewish Question).
  • Targeting Olympian Mo Farah, labelling people of Somalin origin “backwards barbarians”.
  • His belief that Muslims can’t be British citizens.
  • His past membership of the racist and antisemitic British National Party.


Robinson was one of the organisers of the recent ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally. Generation Remigration were one of the speakers at this event, as we reported:

Who are Generation Remigration, you might ask?

Well, they’re the leading proponents of ‘remigration’, which is the plan to mass deport migrants and their descendants from European countries. We’re not quite sure how that will work in Britain given the continuous influxes of populations we’ve experienced since the Roman Empire, except we are sure, obviously – they’re talking about deporting Black and brown people.

The British political class

In the wake of the terror attack on 2 October, several pundits and politicians issued statements which were broadly in line with Robinson’s. Criticism of pro-Palestine protests had previously reduced following the UN’s verdict that Israel is committing a genocide.

For context, most of the following comments were made before Manchester Police highlighted that one of the men who died was shot by one of their officers:


The Liberal Democrats’ Tim Farron claimed that protests against Israel’s genocide are actually protests against Israel’s ties to Judaism:

LBC’s Shelagh Fogarty said the following:

The Daily Mail’s Dan Hodges suggested anti-genocide protests are a call for ‘Jewish eradication’:

As people highlighted, Hodges has condoned “collective punishment” against Palestinians and their children, which is a war crime:

The Tories’ Suella Braverman described the anti-genocide protests as “hate marches”:


Reform’s Richard Tice sided with Israeli criticism of the UK despite the fact that it’s committing a genocide:


The home secretary drew criticism for describing protests against the genocide as “un-British”:


Green Party leader Zack Polanski took offence to Mahmood’s insinuation:

Novara’s Rivkah Brown highlighted the following exchange:

In response to these interventions, Shaiel Ben-Ephraim said:

Featured image via ReelNews / Channel Forty Eight

By Willem Moore

This post was originally published on Canary.