MPs are calling for an inquiry into foreign interference in UK politics after far-right ‘activist’ Tommy Robinson flew to Washington DC to meet with members of the Trump administration.
Posting about the trip, Robinson – real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – said he was ‘making alliances and friendships’.
While stateside, he met with Joe Rittenhouse, a senior adviser at the state department, who wrote on social media: ‘The World and the West are a better place when we fight for freedom of speech, and no one has been on the front lines more than Tommy. Good to see you, my friend!’
It remains unclear what the exact purpose of Robinson’s visit to the United States was or if he met in secret with high-ranking officials.
But his trip hasn’t gone down well back in the UK, where Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesperson, MP Calum Miller, said that the Trump administration hosting Robinson needs to be a ‘wake-up call’.
He said: ‘The Government needs to include the US in their inquiry into foreign interference in UK politics.
‘We cannot stand by while the likes of Trump and Musk meddle in our democracy.’
While in the US, Robinson also met with controversial Congressman Randy Fine, who has spewed Islamophobic rhetoric online.
The Congressman, from Florida, previously wrote on social media: ‘If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.’
Robinson and Fine chatted briefly before the British ‘activist’ left, with his next stop set to be Florida, where Fine hails from.
The 43-year-old Brit said earlier this month that he fled the UK in part because he was named in an ISIS magazine as a priority target.
He shared a clip of a phone call from police to his X account in which an officer told him he had been identified in a magazine called Yalghar, which ISIS-K, Islamic State Khorasan Province, reportedly publish.
In it, the officer tells him: ‘So we have received intelligence that an ISIS publication has stated… are encouraging others to commit violence against you.’
Bedfordshire Police, the force in Robinson’s hometown, Luton, confirmed the phone call was legitimate and happened on Thursday.
Robinson was previously banned from the United States after attempting to enter the country using his friend’s passport in 2012.
He was unable to use his own passport at the time because of ‘multiple criminal convictions, including several for violent conduct and assault as well as mortgage fraud’.
In 2019, the English defense League founder begged Donald Trump for asylum after he was found to be in contempt of court when he filmed defendants accused of the sexual exploitation of young girls and live-streamed the footage, in breach of a reporting ban.
At the time, he shared his plea on the InfoWars channel, writing: ‘I feel like I’m two days away from being sentenced to death in the UK.
‘I beg Donald Trump, I beg the American government, to look at my case. I need evacuation from this country because dark forces are at work.’
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