Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon (born 27 November 1982), better known as Tommy Robinson, is a British far-right, Islamophobic activist, and convicted criminal on multiple counts of violence and fraud as well as other crimes. He is the co-founder and former leader of the English Defence League, and later served as a political advisor to former UKIP leader Gerard Batten. Robinson has been active in far-right politics for many years. He was a member of the neo-fascist and white nationalist British National Party (BNP) from 2004 to 2005. For a short time in 2012, he was joint vice-chairman of the British Freedom Party (BFP). Robinson led the EDL from 2009 until 8 October 2013. He continued as an activist, and in 2015 became involved with the development of Pegida UK, a now defunct British chapter of the German-based far-right organisation Pegida. From 2017 to 2018, Robinson wrote for and appeared in online videos for Rebel News, a Canadian far-right political website. Robinson has a long-standing criminal record. His convictions include for violence, stalking, financial and immigration frauds, drug possession and public order offences. He has been committed to prison for contempt of court. He has served at least four separate terms of imprisonment: in 2005 for assault, in 2012 for using false travel documents to enter the United States, in 2014 for mortgage fraud, and, in May 2018, Robinson was committed to prison for 13 months for contempt of court after publishing a Facebook Live video of defendants entering a law court, contravening a court order that disallows reporting on such trials while proceedings are ongoing. On 1 August 2018, due to procedural errors, he was released on bail pending a new hearing of the case. On 5 July 2019, Robinson was again found guilty of contempt of court at the retrial and was committed at the Old Bailey to nine months in prison on 11 July․ Before his sentencing, Robinson appeared on InfoWars and appealed for political asylum in the United States. He was released from prison on 13 September 2019 after serving 9 weeks. On 22 July 2021, Robinson was found to have libelled a 15-year-old refugee at a school in Huddersfield and was ordered to pay £100,000 plus legal costs, although Robinson had filed for bankruptcy in March 2021. In October 2021, he was made subject to a five-year stalking order for harassing the journalist Lizzie Dearden and her