Talk:Tommy Robinson

Name

Referred to as merely Stephen Lennon here [1]  Francium12  21:03, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

The article text at present shifts several times between calling him "Robinson" and "Lennon". It's even more confusing in that there are references made to a real person called Robinson in Luton. To which "Robinson" does the text there refer? I don't have any views on which name is used, but the article needs to be consistent. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:49, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I reckon Tommy Robinson should be used as it is the name he prefers and I would say Wikipedia: Common Name is Tommy Robinson.C. 22468 Talk to me 09:48, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

What is his birth name? Jim Michael (talk) 15:38, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Delete

Wikipedia already has a page on this guy here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Yaxley-Lennon

so please delete or forward the present page to this fuller one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.53.69.150 (talk) 12:58, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Searchlight magazine referred to as "communist"

Searchlight (magazine) is repeatedly referred to as communist. It's wikipedia article describes it as anti-fascist. For the sake of continuity i have replaced "communist" with "anti-fascist". — Preceding unsigned comment added by J48antialias (talk • contribs) 03:07, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposed move

Wouldn't it be best to use "Tommy Robinson (political activist)" as the title of this article? I think that would be more in line with standard Wikipedia norms. If it where a politician for instance, we would no doubt use "(politician)" rather than "(Labour Party)"/"(Conservative Party)" as disambiguation. —Filippusson (t.) 01:50, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Tommy Robinson (political activist) would be more in line with Wikipedia practices. Since there are no other political activists by that name that would be the least level of detail we would need to go into. __meco (talk) 17:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:58, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

---

Tommy Robinson (EDL) → Tommy Robinson (English Defence League) — EDL is a highly ambiguous disambiguation term. Indeed it is a disambiguation page on its own, with many possible values for EDL that are appropriate people discriminators. 70.24.248.23 (talk) 05:53, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support. As the nom says, EDL is ambiguous – this move would add clarity. Jenks24 (talk) 12:17, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. EDL is not ambiguous in terms of membership. There is no other organization called EDL with actual members. Pass a Method talk 18:36, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment user:PassaMethod moved this article to "EDL". 70.24.248.23 (talk) 10:06, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment you're obviously not looking at the EDL disambiguation page. An employee of Electronic Defense Laboratories would qualify as xxx (EDL), a member of European Democratic Lawyers would do so as well, or the band Every Day Life. I would think that European Democratic Lawyers as a union has members, and that as a musical group, Every Day Life has members. 70.24.248.23 (talk) 10:05, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
• Support either this or the below suggestion. – Richard BB 13:33, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

• Comment As I stated in the section above it would be far more appropriate to rename the article to Tommy Robinson (political activist). —Filippusson (t.) 12:27, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
  • That title would also be acceptable to me. Jenks24 (talk) 13:20, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
    • Either that or Tommy Robinson (English Defence League) would be fine with me. Anything but the current title. – Richard BB 13:32, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Birthdate

The register of company directors shows Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, of Wilstead, Bedfordshire, was born on 27 November 1982. Search via [2]. This is a primary source but policy allows de minimis use of primary sources to establish base facts. Sam Blacketer (talk) 17:27, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

In a case such as this that should be unproblematic. __meco (talk) 17:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

That is not a reliable source Pass a Method talk 18:33, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I think it's sufficient. especially considering there are no other name matches. We should certainly go with this date whether or not this commercial directory should be used as article reference or not. If we really need to discuss this, an entry should be submitted at the reliable sources noticeboard. __meco (talk) 20:47, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

#CreepingSharia

Shouldn't his #creepingsharia hashtag be a part of the article? It became risible, but that too is a part of his story, and quite well documented. kencf0618 (talk) 20:35, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Should be in there, for sure, but with a good source behind it. —Cliftonian (talk) 22:08, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Someone has added the incident already again (I didn't get a round tuit), but I've added two citations to it. kencf0618 (talk) 00:56, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the article is wrong to say he mistook the Taj Mahal for a Mosque, because it actually is a picture of the Grand Mosque in Muscat. The Guardian article referenced in the article has been corrected to point this out. However, I'm not sure what to change the sentence to... so someone else can fix it. (Note: This doesn't change the fact the man is an idiot, seeing as Twitter is a Global site and not just for Little Englanders) 84.93.153.137 (talk) 18:31, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Will the real name of the subject please stand up....

It now seems clear that, rather than "Stephen Yaxley-Lennon" or "Tommy Robinson," the subject of this page is actually called Paul Harris. As it stands, the page is somewhat confused because it switches between "Robinson" and "Lennon" at arious point. We really need to decide exactly what we're going to call him, and use it consistently. Nick Cooper (talk) 21:43, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes - but for the moment, this is going to be difficult. We'll have to leave it to others to figure out what his name really is - I'm not sure that it is entirely clear that it is 'Paul Harris'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:25, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Since the subject of the article is "Tommy Robinson"—that is, this person in the context of his EDL activities—I'd start the article along this kind of line:

Tommy Robinson is a pseudonym used by Stephen Lennon (born 27 November 1982), an English political activist whose passport bears the name Paul Harris. He is the co-founder, spokesman and leader of the English Defence League (EDL) "street protest" movement, established in 2009 ...

Then we refer to him as Robinson thereafter in the lead. Of course, another road we could go down would be renaming the article "Stephen Lennon", and rendering the lead something like this:

Stephen Lennon (born 27 November 1982), also known as Tommy Robinson or Paul Harris, is an English political activist, and the co-founder, spokesman and leader of the English Defence League (EDL) "street protest" movement, established in 2009 ...

I'd personally lean towards the second of these options.

In the body sections I'd be inclined to say we should use Lennon, which judging by the weight of sources seems to be his birth name (I had not encountered the "Paul Harris" name until this latest passport incident (see here, BBC), and the sources in the article seem to just call him "Lennon" rather than "Yaxley-Lennon". I can only think he must have changed his name to Paul Harris by deed poll for the passport to be legitimate, as the BBC source says it is).

In the "English Defence League" section, we should try to make clearer which Robinson is which, perhaps along the lines of "the real Robinson" and "Lennon (as Robinson)".

In the "Criminal record" and "Alleged assault" sections I think we should use Lennon as this is referring to the "real" person (that is, outside his EDL context, which is where the Robinson pseudonym applies).

Just my opinion. Hope this is handy. —Cliftonian (talk) 20:37, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Going by the sources we currently have, I'm inclined to agree with your second proposal: 'Lennon' seems to be the name generally used in sources. It might be worth waiting a day or two though, as I suspect the 'Harris' issue may have got a few journalist's noses twitching - though for WP:BLP reasons, I'd best not go into details, and it may very well be a complete red herring: 'Paul Harris' is a common name in the UK. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:13, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

We should go by how people self-define. Tommy self-identifies as Tommy Robinson, and is recognised as sch by his group too. Renaming would be the equivalent of renaming the Muhammad Ali article to Cassius ClayPass a Method talk 21:31, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not entirely convinced by that arguement. We tend to go with either a real name, or the most widely used. It seems that recently "robinson" is being dropped in favour of "Lennon," at least as far as media reporting goes - the BBC article on sentencing, for example, does not mention "Robinson" at all. Nick Cooper (talk) 15:25, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Racist

I removed the mention of him as racist. The reference given LINK doesn't mention him being racist. In fact it states the difference in attitudes between the leaders of the 'EDL' and its followers. Also, the reference is only a conference paper anyway. A better source is needed or maybe a discussion of this issue like the EDL wiki entry. - Phazakerley (talk) 15:50, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 11 June 2013

regards his assault, the referenced paper says it was "bruising" to his brain, not a "blemish" 86.155.127.30 (talk) 12:02, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes - and this was supposed to be a direct quote. I have corrected it, thanks for pointing out the error. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:36, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Overly Negative

This guy is clearly a white version of Malcom X and the article should reflect more of his good intentions and not have such an obvious tone of reverse racism. 72.34.80.28 ([[User / talk:72.34.80.28|talk]]) 18:49, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Malcom X disavowed his racism, and anyway the Robinson article appears quite balanced to me, if anything insufficiently critical... cwmacdougall 23:48, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Negative article

What a negative article.

1. Robinson has said, "Sixty per cent of Luton is Irish. Nearly every single one of my friends is Irish. I'm proud to have Irish heritage but I call myself English."[5] - what is the relevance of this quote??
2. His family is under 24-hour police protection due to claimed threats received from Muslim extremists - claimed threats? police told him to stop retweeting all the threats he was getting, so they are not 'claimed'.
3. Lennon uses the alias "Tommy Robinson", taking the name of a prominent member of the "Men In Gear" (MIG) football hooligan crew - source on this??
4. He appeared masked in public at first, until the Sunday Mercury newspaper managed to photograph his face in April 2010. - source does not quite say this. (p14)
5. The first two sentences of The Criminal record section mostly relies on two sources, Copsey, N. (2010) and The BNP past of the EDL leader Searchlight Magazine. Copsey was commissioned by Tell Mama UK which is a pro-religious/Islam organisation and is on the front page of the website, so it is clearly not a neutral source and I question it's reliability. Similarly with the Searchlight Magazine article, it is an inherently negative article used to discredit the subject, also by Hope not Hate, a pressure group. There is some truth in the statements as shown by the sky news source, which would be more suitable.
6. 29 June 2013 arrest has no context.

As above, this articles violates WP:BLP or at least WP:NPOV.--Loomspicker (talk) 16:18, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I fixed all these.--Loomspicker (talk) 21:34, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Undiscussed page move

User:Indiasummer95 has just moved this article from the clear and unambiguous ' Tommy Robinson (English Defence League)' to 'Tommy Robinson (activist)' - without discussion. I can see no merit to this move whatsoever, and consider it potentially confusing (e.g. with the gay rights and anti-racist activist Tom Robinson). Is there any good reason why it shouldn't be moved back to the consensus title? AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:45, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps because he has quit the EDL, along with various other leaders? Nick Cooper (talk) 11:21, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Interesting - I wasn't aware of that, and Indiasummer95 gave no indication of being aware of it either. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:51, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Tom Robinson was known for his music. Tommy isn't known for his sunbeds Indiasummer95 (talk) 16:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Birthplace

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24451467 London apparently, until his mother remarried. Are there any other sources as reliable or specific to the contrary? Indiasummer95 (talk) 16:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Reliable primary sources like this give his birthplace as Luton, as does the BBC here ("We did find your birth certificate, you were born Stephen Christopher Yaxley Lennon in Luton 1982."), but if he wants to claim he was born in London who are we to argue. Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:40, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Fair play. Luton it stays Indiasummer95 (talk) 20:05, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Might be worth putting OR London?--Loomspicker (talk) 21:17, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Dunno. I think that London claim on the BBC article was a typo, if official records state him as being born in Luton. Indiasummer95 (talk) 16:34, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Daily Star and "24-hour protection"

An editor has been persistently reinstating info from a Daily Star article which originated from its strapline. A newspaper story's strapline, written by a sub-editor rather than the journalist who writes the main story, is never, I should say, a reliable source of information from most newspapers, let alone the Daily Star. There is no other reliable source I can find to back up the Daily Star's story of Tommy Robinson claiming to have 24-hour police protection (quite the opposite during his time leading EDL, it seems). Since in any case the Daily Star is not regarded as a reliable source by the editing community, I have removed the info derived from that story altogether. Alfietucker (talk) 09:15, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Glad you removed it. It was puzzling that you wanted to include part of it - which would have been selective as not all aware there are multiple editors involved in tabloid papers. StuffandTruth (talk) 13:01, 29 October 2013 (UTC)