Tommy Robinson confronted a journalist who tracked him and his family down on holiday in Tenerife, demanding to know what makes him ‘far right’ — and was told “you’ve expressed views against Islam”.
Despite having gone to some considerable lengths to find Tommy Robinson and his family as part of a team on a mission from his newspaper to report his doings and snap photographs of him surreptitiously, the journalist is surprisingly upset when Robinson turned a camera on him, insisting he has “got to go” and doesn’t want to answer questions.
Street organiser, citizen journalist, and former English Defence League leader Robinson demanded the journalist “justify how I’m far right” and was told, “you’ve expressed views against Islam”.
The journalist also cited Robinson’s association with figures such as PEGIDA founder Lutz Bachmann, prompting Robinson to ask if the journalist himself is a racist, claiming the newspaper he is working for has previously supported the Nazis and run racist headlines about black people in the past.
At one point, the journalist insists Robinson cannot be sure his newspaper is going to label him far right “because I haven’t written anything yet”.
The story which ultimately emerged from the Daily Mail’s mission to Tenerife, under the byline of Associate Global Editor Jake Wallis Simons, is headlined ‘Far-Right thug Tommy Robinson soaks up the sun in Tenerife with German Islamophobe banned from Britain’, however.
Robinson also confronts the journalist over the propriety of tracking him down on holiday with his family and taking pictures of him in the first place, asking how he would like it
“Shall I find you and your family, shall I? You got kids?” asks Robinson.
“I have got kids, yeah,” the journalist replies.
“Shall I come with a camera to where you are… Shall I come outside your child’s school? Would it be fair?”, Robinson said — making it clear that be believed doing such things was not morally acceptable.
“Look, you’re a high-profile person, I’m not a high-profile person,” the journalist answered, with little clear conviction.
Replying, Robinson said: “No, you’re a lying journalist. You’re a lying journalist with no conscience.”
The journalist continues to insist he should not be ambushed in the same way as Robinson because he is “not high-profile”, but Robinson is unimpressed.
“You are now mate, you are high-profile now… You’re going to be under the public eye for the hundreds of thousands of people who watch this, yeah, so is it going to be OK for me to come to your house, and your Mum’s house… I’ll do to you what you’ve done to me. Is that going to be fair?”
“No,” he replies dejectedly — but continues to insist it is different because he is not a “divisive figure”.
Robinson suggests this is only because the journalist is “too much of a coward” to express his views, and begins to grill him on his opinions on Islam and child grooming gangs — prompting him to say he has “said enough” and begin to physically flee.
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