Tommy Robinson, Britain’s self-styled free speech warrior, has been allowed to enter the U.S. despite a long criminal rap sheet.
On Thursday, Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, posted a video on social media from an airport in the U.S. announcing, “I’ve arrived!” He said the trip was “last-minute” after he’d been informed only hours earlier that he’d gotten a visa, and hinted at plans to throw himself into U.S. politics. That apparently included a meeting with Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, a longtime peddler of MAGA election conspiracy theories.
Sharing a photo of himself shaking hands with Flynn, Robinson said it was his “first stop” upon arrival.
It’s unclear how he secured a visa despite a litany of crimes to his name, including serving time for entering the U.S. with a false passport back in 2012. Robinson has become the British far-right’s cause célèbre for his inflammatory takes on immigration and free speech, often overlapping with MAGAworld. In a video posted Thursday, he claimed to be emotionally invested in American politics and appeared to boost Trump’s debunked narrative about the “robbery” of the 2020 presidential election.
He was supposed to speak to American lawmakers in Congress in 2017, but dozens of British members of parliament had the visit blocked. “They didn’t want me to come here to talk about the problems that Britain faces,” he said in a video posted on his website, shot outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. “Well, tough s--t, I’m now here.”
His visit is all the more surprising given that he entered the U.S. using a friend’s passport in 2012. Robinson, then the leader of the now-defunct far-right English Defence League, pleaded guilty to possession of a false identity document with improper intention and was jailed for 10 months at the time.
Then 30, Robinson used a passport in the name of Andrew McMaster to board a Virgin Atlantic flight from London Heathrow to New York. However, he was caught out after his fingerprints were taken by customs officials.
He left the country the following day and used his own passport to return to the U.K. A court in London heard at the time that he had previously been refused entry to the U.S., so he used his friend’s passport in an attempt to bypass any issues.
Robinson’s legal troubles first started over 20 years ago, in 2005, when he was sentenced to 12 months in prison after assaulting a police officer who had stepped in to quell an argument between him and his then partner.
An assault charge in 2011, followed by a slap on the wrist for leading a soccer fan brawl, closed off a turbulent year for Robinson.
His 2012 trouble at the U.S. border came next; he was jailed for this in 2013. In 2014, Robinson was given an 18-month prison sentence for his part in a mortgage fraud operation.
By that point, he had left the EDL, citing “concerns over far-right extremism.”
But he had no concern for breaking the law, it seems. After a years-long quiet period, he made himself known to the British legal system once more, in 2018, when he willfully broke strict contempt of court laws.
He and his cronies had interrupted a grooming gang trial by livestreaming on Facebook outside Leeds Crown Court in the north of England. He was jailed for six months in 2019. Judges said that, during the stream, he had called on supporters to “harass a defendant by finding him, knocking on his door, following him, and watching him.”
To add insult to injury, he was given a further three months in jail for a similar offense committed in 2017 outside Canterbury Crown Court, for which he had received a suspended sentence.
Robinson was given a five-year stalking protection order in October 2021 for harassing a journalist and her partner, after the reporter dug into allegations of Robinson misappropriating funds donated by followers.
Robinson was jailed again for contempt of court in 2014, this time for being in breach of an injunction by repeating false allegations about a Syrian refugee. He was given an 18-month sentence but was released after seven.
In May 2025, Robinson was charged with two counts of harassment causing fear of violence against two Mail Online journalists based on alleged online conduct from August 2024. A jury trial at Southwark Crown Court is slated for later this year.
In August that same year, he was reported to have been arrested on suspicion of assault at London’s St Pancras railway station related to an incident the month prior. Police took him into custody for questioning, but the case died due to a lack of evidence and the fact that the alleged victim opted not to provide a statement.
Robinson has largely relied on donations from followers to bankroll his legal defenses. In January last year, the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, “agreed to help fund” his “mounting legal bills,” according to The i Paper.
He also appeared via video link at Robinson’s “Unite the Kingdom” rally in September 2025 in central London. The event drew tens of thousands of people and was accompanied by substantial clashes between protesters and police.
Musk has trumpeted Robinson’s cause, describing the U.K. as a “tyrannical police state” in which “civil war is inevitable.”
The State Department and the White House have been asked to comment on Robinson’s arrival in the U.S.
