Tommy Robinson’s key organiser appointed to UKIP executive

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) may not have joined UKIP himself but his right hand-man, and the main organiser of tomorrow’s ‘Uniting The Kingdom’ rally in London, has just been appointed to the UKIP National Executive Committee. The tie-up bteween UKIP and his ‘cultural movement’ which Yaxley-Lennon suggested last week might happen, seems to be proceeding apace.

Richard Inman, a former soldier, has been associated with Yaxley-Lennon for years. He was the main organiser of the demonstration in Whitehall last July, where Y-L welcomed him on stage and introduced him as the man without whom the event simply would not have happened. Inman then addressed the rally (below). He was at Y-L’s side during the Remembrance Day demonstration which degenerated into violence (top picture).

Now Inman is playing a key role in tomorrow’s events. A week ago, he and other organisers were filmed and livestreamed for almost two hours as they accompanied Met Police officers planning how the rally would go off.

Then only a few days later, Inman was one of a group of individuals who were appointed to the UKIP NEC. There were only 11 candidates for the 11 NEC vacancies, so all were simply placed in post without an election. But unlike some of those appointed, Inman was not new to UKIP. This was his second spell of membership.

He originally joined in 2018 as a supporter of then leader Gerard Batten, who had taken UKIP on a sharp rightwards turn and appointed Yaxley-Robinson as the party’s ‘Rape and Grooming Gang’ adviser”. At that time, Inman was using a County Down address. He let his membership lapse in 2020 following the expulsion of Batten and his pro-‘Tommy Robinson’ faction in 2019.

Inman, now living in Keighley, appears to have rejoined the party only recently, possibly after the annual conference held last month jointly with the English Democrats. As we reported earlier, he has a recent conviction for issuing threat against his local MP for which he got a suspended jail sentence.

Searchlight has reported a number of signs pointing to a UKIP-Yaxley-Lennon link up. One of the earliest was a warning from Lois Perry, when she resigned as party leader during the general election campaign.

She claimed that there was something “sinister” going on “at the very top of the party” where some people, “wanted to go after quite an extreme viewpoint”. Specifically, she said, they wanted a tie-up with Yaxley-Lennon.

Then only a week ago, Y-L announced in an interview that he was impressed by UKIP and its leader Nick Tenconi and was looking forward to talks with them when he was back in the UK. So, this NEC appointment could be highly significant. To see Y-L’s right-hand organiser sitting on the NEC means that it probably won’t be long before Y-L himself is eventually welcomed into the party, although his current legal difficulties may delay and complicate the process.