Or, how a ‘Tommy Robinson’ whip-round divvy-up has fired up a right wing Lynch mob

Can you remember when, before his latest stint in the slammer, ‘Tommy Robinson’ could be seen posing in an ‘I am Peter Lynch’ T-shirt? We all took it at the time as being an example of statements of identification with real or supposed victims, such as ‘Je suis Charlie’, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ or even ‘I am Spartacus’.

But suspicions are now being muttered online that was more of a declaration that ‘Peter Lynch’ had simply become the latest of the Luton Leprechaun’s many aliases*, and so support for Lynch was the same as support for Robinson. Money raised for Lynch’s family was the same as money raised for Robinson’s family and so on.

Whatever semantics and sophistry one can apply to ‘I am Peter Lynch’, it certainly seems to be the case that money donated by protest marchers with the intention that it should ease the pain of Lynch’s family has instead ended up in the pockets of the ‘Robinson’ brood.

Disturbed and conspiracy-obsessed

To remind readers, the real Peter Lynch committed suicide in prison, having been banged up for his part in last summer’s post-Southport riots. While guilty as charged, Lynch was pretty clearly a disturbed, conspiracy theory-obsessed individual, and even many anti-fascists would concede that psychiatric detention would possibly have done him a lot more good than being in the general prison population. At any rate, there was a great deal of sympathy for him among the far right.

Robinson climbed on this bandwagon and decided to commandeer it. “He’s a martyr for our country and a martyr for our cause,” he said on social media the day after Lynch’s death. “If you’re his family and you’re watching this, we will pay for his funeral. We will pay for everything.”

Cashing in

Ever the opportunist, he sought to cash in on this cause du jour by repeatedly urging those horrified by Lynch’s fate to turn out for a London rally that Robinson had already organised and that was really all about himself. “Every single one of you upset about this man’s death, you have to get yourself to London,” he said.

As fate would have it, Robinson was himself unable to attend the October rally, having been arrested and remanded the day before, in connection with the charge for which is now serving 18 months in prison.

The rally continued in his absence (and was streamed online), and during it one of his loyal sidekicks, Richard ‘I’m Free’ Inman, told the audience: “There’s another hero, and he’s not here today, and he won’t be at any more demonstrations.… what we’re going to do is pass buckets round the audience, and we’re going to do a collection for Peter Lynch’s family.” He added:

“And we’re going to do a collection for Tommy Robinson’s children.”

This made it sound like two whip-rounds were to take place, but in fact a single set of identical blue collection buckets circulated. None appeared to have any writing on them, so donors will have been unclear what exactly they were handing over money for and may have relied on what was said to them by the bucket-chuggers.

The Sun alleges that not a penny of this money has made its way to the Lynch family in the five months since it was collected, only to the ‘Robinson’ family. And the jailbird’s associates do not even dispute this. They say that the Lynch share of the begging bowl (a measly one-quarter, apparently) was turned down by the dead man’s family. The Sun claims that a representative of the Lynch family told the paper that they could not comment on whether they were offered any money, because of “an investigation”.

On the organised far right, where it is commonly held that ‘Robinson’ is nothing but an unashamed grifter, condemnation has been swift in coming. Patriotic Alternative leader Mark Collett described the story as “sickening” whilst other right-wing accounts have alleged that “Tommy’s team are all fraudsters” or asked “Does this fund his Spanish lifestyle?”

Thailand-based veteran racist-inciter James Goddard stated that:

“Tommy and his team are SCUM Imagine telling people you’re raising money for Peter Lynch’s family, only to then give the money to Tommeh’s Kids.

“I warned everyone about these scumbags.

“If you follow Tommy, you’re part of the problem!”

In another post he said: “Team Tommy Robinson are Despicable… if you’re not calling this out then you’re either a coward or morally bankrupt.”

Jayda Fransen, former leader of Britain First gloated that there was obviously “Trouble amongst the Tommytards”.

But, predictably enough, complete radio silence from usually un-shut-up-able UKIP leader Nick Tenconi, who drools over Robinson’s fund raising gifts and can’t wait to sit down and plot with him as soon as he is released from prison.

Unapologetic

Robinson’s mouthpiece Urban Scoop has been entirely unapologetic about the whole business. “The money went to Tommy’s kids. No explanation required as everyone was told donations were going to them at the time. We can’t make Peter Lynch’s family take money they don’t want from us.”

What Robinson’s online account does dispute is the sums of money involved. “Allegations… claiming we collected £42,000 that day are categorically false,” says Tommy Robinson News. (The Sun has subsequently toned this claim down to the much vaguer “thousands”).

One intriguing aspect of this is just how paltry the sum raised was, if one is to believe the Robinson version of events. The Sun estimates the size of the crowd at that rally as around 50,000. We believe it was more like 50% of that figure. Even taking 25,000 as a fair guess, that would number-crunch to an average donation of about 17p per protestor.

Pathetically small

Use the Sun’s estimate of 50,000 and the average donation per Robinsonite  recalculates to 8p. For a dual-purpose whip-round among a supposedly highly committed crowd, this seems pathetically small. And it’s hard to believe that £4,000 was supposed to cover the “we will pay for his funeral. We will pay for everything,” promise, even before Robinson’s daughters divvied up three-quarters of it

This leaves the TommyRotters painted into a bit of a corner. They want us to believe that the crowd was massive. But they also want us to believe that it stumped up just £4,000 to be shared between two martyrs’ families (and be in no doubt that O’Bogus considers himself as much of a martyr as Lynch). Between the two aspects of the arithmetic, they are effectively trying to sell us the idea that even that fraction of Robinson’s supporters who are not skinheads are decidedly skinflints.

* ‘Tommy Robinson’ is a nom de grift. He was born ‘Stephen Yaxley’, his iffy Irish passport says he is ‘Stephen Lennon’, he has been convicted for illegally travelling as ‘Paul Harris’ and he has also, at minimum, used the aliases ‘Andrew MacMaster’ and ‘Wayne King’ (many have suggested that Wayne Kerr would have been more accurate).