UK: Speaker slams far-right figure's Parliament dinner

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON (AA) – The founder and former leader of an anti-Muslim group who dined this week at parliament is a “loathsome, obnoxious, repellent individual,” the speaker of the House of Commons said Wednesday, distancing himself from the invitation.

John Bercow’s comments came following criticism from some lawmakers over Tommy Robinson, founder of the far-right English Defence League (EDL), being invited to a dinner at the British parliament on Tuesday.

Scottish National Party (SNP) MP Stewart Malcolm McDonald directed a question about the reports that Robinson had been invited to parliament by UK Independence Party (UKIP) peer Lord Pearson.

McDonald blasted the Islamophobic far-right figure as a “violent racist thug and fraudster.”

“I understand that sometimes we have to engage in views that one might not agree with, but surely the fact that a man who is as guilty as he is on stirring up racial hatred, organizing violent, thuggish crimes around the country, setting up the EDL and everything that comes with it crosses a line, and such a person should not be invited to walk amongst us on the parliamentary estate,” said McDonald.

Robinson is a far-right figure known in the U.K. for his anti-Islamic views and campaigns.

“First, I share his assessment of the individual concerned – a loathsome, obnoxious, repellent individual, and I make no bones about my view being the same as his on that front,” Bercow responded.

He said people being invited to the Lords was “outside of my remit,” advising McDonald to write to the House of Lords speaker, Lord Fowler, about the issue.

The invitation of Robinson to parliament by Lord Pearson, former UKIP leader -- also known for his anti-Muslim sentiments -- was also condemned by Labour MP Wes Streeting.

“Lord Pearson has disgraced himself by inviting convicted criminal and hate-monger Stephen Yaxley-Lennon into parliament for a slap-up lunch,” Streeting said, using Robinson’s given name.

“This country fought a world war to defeat Hitler’s fascism, not to see the red carpet rolled out for the far right,” he added.

Another Labour MP, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, also slammed the invitation.

Speaking to the PoliticsHome website, the Labour MP said “the views of Tommy Robinson have no place” in the British parliament.

"The fact the British taxpayer has had to pay for him to be dining a right-wing extremist in the House of Lords is nothing short of an outrage,” he added.

He said: "The both of them [Robinson and Pearson] belong on the fringes of British society and not in our nation's parliament.

- UKIP's far-right initiative

Britain’s once-populist UK Independence Party (UKIP) last month took a big leap into becoming a racist far-right movement with a manifesto full of anti-Islamic plans.

The so-called “interim manifesto,” unveiled during UKIP’s autumn conference, contains plans for all-Muslim prisons, enhanced screening for migrants from Islamic countries, and plans to scrap a swathe of equality and anti-racism laws in the U.K.

The party claims extremism is “actively fostered" in jails, where "Muslim gangs hold sway" and "non-Islamic prisoners are converting for their own protection."

The document is understood to have taken from the far-right EDL and Britain First movements’ policies, as it also calls for a national inquiry into the so-called grooming gangs, which it describes as “one of the greatest social scandals in English history”.

The sharper shift to the far-right of the party began under the presidency of Gerard Batten, who allied himself with former EDL leader Robinson after taking over the helm from Henry Bolton this April.

Last month Batten also insulted the Prophet Mohammad at a rally organized by the Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA), an anti-Muslim movement formed by far-right hooligans.

Speaking to the British press, the party’s ex-leader Nigel Farage warned that Batten needs "to be careful what company he keeps."