The problem with imprisoning Tommy Robinson

Tommy Robinson, the anti-Islam activist whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, after pleading guilty on Monday to two counts of contempt of court. His fans insist he has been jailed for ‘journalism’ – for daring to tell unpalatable truths and for exposing a corrupt establishment. This is self-serving nonsense. Nevertheless, those of us who believe in free speech still have reason to be troubled by his imprisonment.

As is often the case, Robinson’s version of events bears scant resemblance to the actual truth. It is clear that he suffers from delusions of martyrdom. Or is just knowingly talking rubbish. After his sentencing, a statement was posted on his X account, which he had apparently intended to read in court. In it, Robinson compares his plight to the victims of the Post Office scandal, who were prosecuted under false pretences. And in a video to supporters released ahead of Monday’s court appearance, he presented himself as a ‘journalist’ fighting for ‘truth and freedom’. ‘If that… makes me on the wrong side of your corrupt, bullshit, unlawful… injunctions, then that’s how it is’, he said.

But Robinson was not jailed this week because he fought for the truth. He was jailed because he repeated a lie – a lie that led him to lose a libel case back in 2021. (This is a separate case to his charge under the Terrorism Act, which he will face trial for in November.)

The libel saga began in October 2018, when a video went viral showing a then 15-year-old Syrian refugee being assaulted by a schoolmate. According to Robinson, the bullied Syrian boy was actually the villain in the affair. Robinson falsely accused him of attacking his female classmates and threatening to stab another schoolboy. In response, the boy sued Robinson for libel and won, as not a single one of those lurid claims could be proven in court. On the contrary, the evidence showed that the boy was well-behaved, not the monster Robinson painted him as.

Repeating these defamatory claims is ultimately what has landed Robinson in prison. After the trial, he made a documentary called Silenced that expanded on the false allegations. He distributed the film on X, where it remains pinned to the top of his profile. He even showed it at a rally of thousands in London’s Trafalgar Square earlier this year. As the court heard on Monday, he has also repeated the claims on several podcasts and interviews.

Robinson’s breaches of the 2021 injunction, then, are legion. This is presumably why he felt he had no other option but to plead guilty. What’s more, he has always understood the consequences of defying the libel ruling. ‘I’ll be jailed for two years for showing the inconceivable truth’, he boasted in a tweet back in July, ahead of screening Silenced in Trafalgar Square. He deliberately risked being in contempt of court for spreading a lie, all while posing as a silenced truth-teller.

But two things can be true at the same time here. You can recognise that Robinson is as dishonest as he is disreputable, while also being alarmed at his heavy-handed punishment. No one should ever face a custodial sentence for speech, even if what they say is manifestly untrue. The problem here is Britain’s draconian libel laws, which are among the most repressive in the democratic world. Those of us who believe in free speech can surely challenge these laws, without accepting Robinson’s blatant falsehoods.

In fact, the heavy-handed treatment of Robinson has only made it more difficult to challenge him in the court of public opinion. Every new arrest, court case and injunction seems to prompt a new round of ‘Free Tommy’ protests. In the eyes of his fans at least, any and all criticism can be dismissed as an attempt to silence their concerns. The travesty here is that a man who is serially dishonest – shown by both the libel case and his bigoted, Tourette’s like tendency to blame every atrocity or disturbance on Muslims, regardless of the facts – has been able to fashion himself as a warrior for truth. It has let an authoritarian who has flirted with banning the Koran claim to be a ‘free speech’ champion.

If the point of all this was to silence Tommy Robinson, this grifter posing as a martyr, then it has backfired spectacularly.

Fraser Myers is deputy editor at spiked and host of the spiked podcast. Follow him on X: @FraserMyers.