Ex-soccer thug backed by Trump’s attack dog

FORMER BNP yob Stephen Yaxley-Lennon founded the hateful English Defence League in 2009 but has since become one of the most famous far-Right figures in the world as ‘Tommy Robinson’.

Born in Luton in 1982, the former aircraft engineer lost his job in 2003 after a drunken brawl with a police officer and drifted into becoming a central figure in British far-Right extremism.

As a petty criminal he was in and out of prison for football violence and mortgage fraud, but claimed he was turning his back on criminality and violence in 2013 after being jailed for travelling on someone else’s passport to visit EDL fans in America.

He dramatically quit his antiIslam mob group, claiming he would be a peaceful activist with the help of counter-radicalisation group the Quilliam Foundation but instead stepped up his poisonous rhetoric against Muslims.

He hit global fame after being locked up for contempt of court earlier this year – sparking an international ‘Free Tommy’ campaign backed by former Donald Trump strategist Steve Bannon, with a White House envoy lobbying the UK to release him.

Bannon branded Robinson ‘a solid guy’ and the ‘backbone’ of Britain and campaigned for him to be released from jail – sparking a rift with his ally Nigel Farage.

Robinson had been arrested outside Leeds Crown Court and jailed for 13 months after filming defendants on trial for rape while already on serving a suspended sentence for a similar offence.

He was later released on appeal, despite warnings he had risked collapsing the trial into evil Huddersfield grooming gangs.

But Robinson, 35, defended his actions, saying: ‘If I believe I’m morally right then I’m not bothered about what your law says.’

Last week hard-Right Ukip boss Gerard Batten sparked uproar by appointing Robinson his special political adviser on grooming gangs and prisons.

Farage told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I think if you had to find a working-class hero, this is not it. This is not it. Repeat prison sentences, etc.’