His attack on Ukip for appointing the former EDL leader as an adviser is hypocritical.
Gerard Batten, the leader of Ukip who calls Islam a “death cult”, Muhammad a “paedophile”, and has marched alongside the far-right thugs of the Democratic Football Lads Alliance, is appointing Tommy Robinson as an adviser.
A criminal with convictions for assault and football hooliganism whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the former English Defence League leader will advise Ukip on grooming gangs and prison reform.
This appointment makes Ukip’s new-found love-in with street fascism and the alt-right official. Robinson’s new wave of fans, who defended and crowdfunded him when he received a 13-month prison sentence in May for breaking the law (facing two separate contempt of court charges), have drawn the alt-right to Ukip.
Social media darlings of the alt-right like Paul Joseph Watson (an editor at the US conspiracy site Infowars), Mark Meechan (aka “Count Dankula”, infamous for his video teaching a dog Nazi salutes by repeating “Want to gas the Jews?” at it) and Carl Benjamin (a toxic misogynist troll known on YouTube as “Sargon of Akkad” who was accused of sparking a wave of rape threats by others on Twitter against Jess Phillips MP) have joined the party.
But one Ukipper isn’t happy with these developments. Its former leader Nigel Farage has said Ukip should “get rid” of Batten as leader, accusing him of “dragging us in a shameful direction”:
“It goes against all the things I did as leader to say we will talk about immigration, we will talk about the extreme forms of Islam.
