British far-right activist Tommy Robinson welcomed at State Department
The glowing reception contrasts with the tone often adopted by President Donald Trump and his officials toward mainstream politicians across Europe, a frequent target of public criticism.
Dame Sara Khan, the British government’s former counter-extremism commissioner, said she was “disappointed” to see Robinson welcomed to the State Department.
“This is an individual who fueled significant violent unrest on our streets,” Khan, who was also appointed under conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson as an independent government adviser on social cohesion and resilience, told NBC News in an email.
“He has a history of criminal convictions as long as my arm” and is “widely despised by an overwhelming part of the British population,” she said.
A poll by YouGov last year found that 61% of British adults had an unfavorable view of Robinson, while 12% had a favorable view of him.
Robinson and the British Foreign Office did not respond to requests for comment from NBC News.
Once the owner of a tanning salon in his home town of Luton, a town outside London, Robinson was first jailed in 2005 for assaulting an off-duty police officer. Other convictions include mortgage fraud, contempt of court and attempting to circumvent a U.S. travel ban by entering the country using someone else’s passport.
The activist first rose to prominence as a co-founder of the English Defense League, a protest organization that swore against Islam and dabbled in the country’s football hooligan scene.
In recent years, he has amassed millions of followers on X and YouTube, presenting himself as an independent journalist focused on the issue of “grooming gangs” – children sexually abused by groups of men.
Robinson’s high point came last September when his “Unite the Kingdom” march drew more than 110,000 people to the streets of central London, according to police estimates. Elon Musk, who overturned Robinson’s ban from Platform X in 2023, joined the rally via video link, telling the crowd that “violence happens” and “you either fight back or you die.”
For years, Robinson and others have accused government and officials of covering up cases of grooming gangs run by people of South Asian descent.
His claims were frequently amplified by Musk, who used his Megaphone X to broadcast the topic around the world.
An independent report commissioned by the government last year, carried out by the former UK Victims’ Commissioner, found “clear evidence of an over-representation among suspects of men of Asian and Pakistani origin” and that organizations had “avoided the subject altogether for fear of appearing racist”.
The government has since launched a national inquiry, with Shabana Mahmood, the interior minister – whose parents are of Pakistani origin – criticizing a “lamentable failure of the state” on the issue.
Robinson’s critics dispute the idea put forward by Rittenhouse and others that he is a champion of “free speech,” pointing to his 2019 contempt of court conviction for public interventions in a criminal gang case.
“What Robinson is doing is hiding behind the banner of free speech and using it as a weapon to justify the spread of racist and anti-democratic beliefs,” Khan said.
