Ethics & Christian living, Politics

Tommy Robinson’s Carol Concert: show naïve grace or face the ugly truth?

Jon Kuhrt

The far-right campaigner, Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, claims to have become a Christian in prison. And this Saturday, his Unite the Kingdom movement has organised a Christmas Carol service in Whitehall.

John Clifton wrote thoughtful article about Robinson’s challenge to the church about how it engages men. He did not approve of Robinson but argued that he was someone whose challenge needs to be listened to:

“I’ve been listening to Robinson directly. Many people have strong opinions about him, but few in my circle seem to have actually heard him…yet if we want to understand what is going on in our nation [it] includes listening, not to seek agreement but to take responsibility.”

Carol Service

I have followed John Clifton’s advice and have been listening to what he has been saying about this event. On the official publicity it states:

This service is not about politics, immigration, or other groups. It is about Jesus Christ – fully and completely.

You can easily imagine many people reading this flier and thinking how reasonable it all sounds: Bible readings, worship, testimonies, all to celebrate the birth of Jesus. What’s not to like?

But I have seen the emails that Robinson has sent to his supporters to promote the event on 15th November, 4th and 9th December (which are reproduced in their entirety on a PDF document below). And these tell a very different story.

The flier says its ‘not about politics’ but his emails say:  

The left-wing elites are waging a ruthless war on Christianity, tearing down our crosses and silencing our prayers in the name of their globalist agenda. Lefty cities like Sheffield (which has a Muslim mayor), have cancelled their Christmas lights this year. Christmas is slowly being re-branded as ‘winter holidays’ by left-wing anti-Christian bigots. But we will not yield our Christian heritage demands we fight back with unyielding resolve.

The flier says its ‘not about immigration’ but his emails say:  

This isn’t just a concert, it’s a rally for our values, a beacon of hope amid the chaos of mass migration and cultural erosion that threatens our way of life. But hear me, this concert is more than music, it’s a statement that Britain belongs to the British people, and our Christian heritage will not be silenced.

Sadiq Khan doesn’t own London, he is a coloniser and unwelcome guest, yet he thinks he can dictate when we hold patriotic events!  He will hate the fact that real Christians are celebrating Christmas on his patch.

Far more than a simple performance, this is a rallying cry for our core principles – a shining light in the midst of turmoil caused by unchecked immigration and the fading of our cultural identity.

The flier says its ‘not about other groups’ but his emails say:  

London stands as a beacon of Christian faith…yet, forces seek to erode this sacred legacy, replacing it with foreign ideologies that dim it’s light.

This is going to be Sadiq Khan’s worst nightmare! As a Muslim extremist who is transforming London, our city, into a Sharia Zone, he will be beside himself with rage when he hears about this event! 

Tommy Robinson’s publicity might present this as an event about ‘Jesus Christ, fully and completely’ but his emails tell a very different story.

Co-option

Christians must be aware of the vulnerability of our faith to be co-opted and misused. The grace at the heart of the Christian faith can lead us to naivety which can blind us to the truth. The priest Kenneth Leech, who founded the youth homeless charity Centrepoint, wrote:

‘All Christians are political, whether they realise it or not. But especially when they don’t realise it’ 

Across the world the radical, self-giving love of Jesus is being cynically twisted to suit a particular political agenda. This is what Tommy Robinson is doing with this event: he is not being truthful and is drawing on the cultural and historic legacy of faith in Christ for his own political ends.

Silent tolerance

I don’t believe that anyone should trust Tommy Robinson with their support and neither should we passively tolerate him with our silence. If he has become a Christian then he needs to be discipled by a mature leader who can help him deepen his understanding of Jesus’ grace and truth. The emails I have quoted above show how much he needs such guidance.

This is what all Christians need: to be nurtured into maturity within Christian community. And as my pastor, Bruce Nadin of Streatham Baptist Church, said this week:

“As Christians in this country, we can’t ignore how easily the language of our faith can be twisted for political ends…If we stay silent when the message of Jesus is distorted, we weaken our witness. Scripture is crystal clear — from the prophets through to Jesus Himself — that God calls His people to defend the weak and uphold justice.

And let the church proclaim with utter conviction that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is an invitation to us all as spiritual refugees to be welcomed as full citizens of God’s Kingdom – not qualifying because we are good enough, but because He is!”

I wrote this reflection after attending the carol concert: The Polar(isation) Express: reflections on Tommy Robinson’s carol concert

See this PDF for the full text from Tommy Robinson’s emails that are quoted above. The only elements redacted from his emails are the recipient’s name and embedded images:

Tommy Robinson’s Christmas Carol Concert emailsDownload

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Published by Jon Kuhrt

Jon Kuhrt has worked with people affected by homelessness for over 30 years. He is a former government adviser on how faith groups address rough sleeping and is now CEO of Hope into Action. He lives with his wife in Streatham, south London and they have 3 children. He likes football....but loves cricket.

27 thoughts on “Tommy Robinson’s Carol Concert: show naïve grace or face the ugly truth?”

  1. Jon, thanks for this really helpful and exposing post. I think the real danger here is not only that Tommy Robinson misuses Christian language, but that Christianity is so easily usable. Robinson can do this because many Christians already treat Christ as something we own—a cultural badge that protects “us” from “them.” Once Christ becomes property, Christ can be weaponised.

    Robinson isn’t inventing a new trick. He’s drawing on a version of Christianity that treats Christ as cultural property—a badge of belonging for “our people” against “their people.” Once Jesus becomes something we can own, That logic has been used before—by nationalists, colonial missions, and churches that blessed racial hierarchy. Robinson is only repeating it.

    But the Gospels show a very different Christ: one who crosses borders, eats with outsiders, and refuses to be controlled by any community’s purity or fear. Christ never belongs to the group trying to claim him.

    So the issue isn’t only Robinson’s politics. It’s this: Will the Church reject a Christianity that protects itself instead of welcoming strangers? Will we expose the version of the faith that needs an enemy/Other in order to feel faithful?

    If Jesus becomes a mascot for exclusion, we are not defending Christianity—we are choosing a religion he would not recognise.

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    1. Thanks Chris – these are helpful thoughts and a good challenge. But I don’t think there is a simple dichotomy between ‘protecting itself’ and ‘welcoming the stranger’. I run a charity which exists to ‘welcome the stranger’ but I need to do what I can to protect it as well from all kinds of threats and challenges, internal and external. I think the church has to ‘conserve the good’ alongside continually adapting and changing.

      I think there is much to explore in the relationship between remaining ‘inclusive’ and maintaining the right kind of ‘exclusivity’. The monastic movements and other radical communities were demanding of their requests – their inclusive actions for the poor and all kinds of social impact were built on exclusive commitments. And we both worked in a team built on similarly strong commitments of faith in Christ and it was good for that ‘exclusivity’.

      But thanks for pretty much agreeing with something I wrote!

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      1. Jon, thanks for your thoughtful reply. You’re right that the tension between ‘conserving the good’ and ‘welcoming the stranger’ isn’t simple. Running a charity, I understand the need for good boundaries and a stable core.

        But I worry that the language of “conserving the good” and “right exclusivity” can easily become a theological cover for protecting our own sovereignty—our control over our community, our resources, and even our version of God. This is the vested interest I think we must challenge.

        The history of the Church shows that when we start treating our doctrine, our structures, or our cultural identity as a “good” to be protected, we often end up protecting our own power and excluding the very people Jesus sought out. We turn the Incarnation—God becoming vulnerable flesh—into a weapon of stability. We say, “The Word became flesh and now we understand,” which then becomes “…and now we are in charge.”

        My argument is that the Incarnation should do the opposite. If “the Word became flesh,” then God entered the very realm of uncertainty, risk, and not being in control. This shouldn’t be a theological guarantee that makes us certain, but a divine mystery that makes us humble. I believe that God’s presence in Christ doesn’t resolve all questions; it deepens them. The body of Christ isn’t a flag for our tribe; it’s a wound to our certainty.

        So when we talk about “right exclusivity,” we must ask: are we exclusive about a set of demanding, self-emptying teachings of Jesus (the way of the cross, radical forgiveness, love of enemy)? Or are we exclusive about protecting our group’s identity, purity, and sense of being in the right?

        The first can be healthy. The second is the engine of Christian nationalism and the “cultural badge” you wrote about. It’s the mechanism that lets someone like Tommy Robinson claim Jesus. He’s just using a well-worn tool: a Jesus who is owned, not followed; a mascot, not a Lord.

        Therefore, for me, the question isn’t just about balancing inclusion and exclusion. It’s about relinquishing sovereignty. A church that clings to sovereignty—over doctrine, culture, or political order—will always need an “other” to define itself against. It will always be tempted to “conserve” itself.

        But a church shaped by an apophatic (unknowing) Christology is called to something different: a practice of vulnerability, of not being in control, of letting its interpretation of God be wounded by the stranger, the outsider. It finds its strength not in protecting what it has, but in dispossessing itself—just as God dispossessed divinity in the manger and on the cross.

        So I return to the challenge: Will we reject a Christianity that protects its own sovereignty? Will we dare to see Christ not as the anchor for our agendas, but as the divine disruption of them? If we cannot, we may be conserving an institution, but we are losing the gospel.

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  2. I agree with a lot of what Chris says above.

    For me as I read the quoted emails it reminded me of things said by Popes and other church leaders to insight people to not only fight in the Crusades but to fund and support them over many years.

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      1. And unfortunately, not just in our digital age, but all through history, we do like a good communicator and an easily fall for that.

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  3. Pingback: Tommy Robinson’s Carol Concert: show naïve grace or face the ugly truth? – CSBV

  4. Thanks Jon, specially for digging into their emails to supporters. Very helpful. It makes me realise that the church in GB is more used to politicians wanting to keep us at arms’ length and not be closely associated with us than we are to attempts to co-opt us. No doubt there’s wisdom from Northern Ireland to tap into here.

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  5. If Tommy Robinson is indeed now a Christian, wouldn’t it be gracious to cut him a bit of slack as we would do for any person who is new to the faith, and not jump on him safe in the knowledge he is an easy target, at least in left of centre circles? BTW, what is the purpose of quoting his real name yet again?

    Yes, Jesus spoke with or about NLMs such as the Samaritans with great generosity and compassion, but there was no great risk of Samaritanism supplanting Judaism. Mass immigration past, present and future does show something more is happening in this country than just providing shelter for the “poor wanderer”. But it seems Christians cannot even talk about this subject for fear of being labelled “far-right”. Indeed, would it matter in the least if the values, culture and civil norms of another religion than Christianity were to form and mould the future of the UK?

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    1. Noel, you make an important point here:

      Mass immigration past, present and future does show something more is happening in this country than just providing shelter for the “poor wanderer”. But it seems Christians cannot even talk about this subject for fear of being labelled “far-right”. 

      Although I applaud how Jon has made clear here the discrepancy between Robinson’s outward message to the public and the internal communication to his followers, and rightly confronted it, we must be cautious not to paint the world in just black and white. Tommy Robinson, those who follow his lead, and many more besides are responding from a place of fear. Anyone dwelling in such a place is worthy of Christian compassion. While I agree that any violent/oppressive/intolerant “Christianity” must be confronted for what it is we also need to do it from a place of love, not hatred born of our own fears—and self-righteousness. And man, this is so very difficult!

      And let’s not forget there are also many others who worry about mass immigration and what it is doing to local communities. Left-wing writers, not just the (sic) “far right” are also concerned; read, for example, Despised by Paul Embery. Such views are barely mentioned in the popular press or on social media as they undermine the Us-and-Them narratives the capitalist system thrives on. This is why I say your comment is important: it invites nuance, something we as a world currently have in very short supply.

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      1. thanks Tobias. Yes I think Paul Embery’s voice is very important and Despised is an excellent book and others in Blue Labour are saying similar things – like Maurice Glasman and Jon Cruddas and you are right that they are hardly mentioned as they do not fit the narrative.

        I think that ‘faith, family and flag’ are all important and need discussing properly and not dismissed. I remain on the ‘political left’ but want to be discussing all these issues so to avoid the tribalism that is more seductive than ever.

        Thanks for appreciating the nuance I was trying to write in as I never want G+T to enter into the tribal mud-slinging that is so popular online – and in and out of the church.

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        1. The Blue Labour movement (fiscally socialist, socially conservative) is the one political movement I feel at home in these days. Thanks for mentioning it. Both the writers you mention have written excellent volumes that aligned with my own intuition, and roughly-formed thinking—thus helping to clarify my persuasion.

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    2. Sorry Noel but I think your comment falls into the ‘naive grace’ I am critiquing. I am not saying TR is some bogeyman to throw vague rocks at but on the specific charge that he is not being truthful. Do you read his emails and think he is being reasonable? His comments about ‘tearing down crosses’ and about Sadiq Khan are laughable. Khan was actually giving the reading at a Christian carol service last night. TR is spreading a narrative, widely swallowed in the US that London is under Sharia Law.

      Also, I don’t think TR is someone we should ignore and this is why I linked to John Clifton’s excellent article which I have shared on FB and received a lot of critique from ‘left leaning’ people. I don’t want to preach to the choir here and be tribal but the reason this post has resonated is being it exposes TR real motivations whatever he puts on his fliers. We cannot be naive.

      I used his real name because its his real name. TR is a brand and one of 4 aliases he has used.

      And I have spoken about immigration and related issues quite a lot – see this post: Reclaiming social justice from toxic identity politics – Grace + Truth so I don’t think we should fear discussing it. But we must do it carefully and with a view to how dangerous racism is.

      If he has genuinely made a commitment he needs discipling properly. And I would say that someone this new to the faith is not someone to run a major event.

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  6. Several commentators have suggested Yaxley-Lennon has ‘become a Christian’ and then posed, as if it were a separate question, how to respond to his latest problematic behavior. (Same thing happened with Russell Brand and a string of other supposed celebrity ‘converts’.) But that would be like Jesus saying to Zaccheus, ‘salvation has indeed come to your house today. Great. Oh, and now let’s talk about returming all that money you stole from the poor’. Jesus pronounced salvation only AFTER he decided to return the money. Luke 19: 8-9.

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    1. Yes, I think we think of conversion in such spiritual ways. We need to look at concrete decisions and how people act and speak – not whether they have secured some spiritual ticket to the afterlife which absolves them of behaviour. This is the cheap grace Bonhoeffer spoke of during the rise of Nazism.

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  9. Whatever your thoughts on Tommy Robinson (oh oh oh he’s actually called Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, isn’t that hilarious!?!?! Wait, was Jesus actually called Jesus?) it’s been very educational to see all see all the gate keepers of Christianity, from the Guardian to The Spectator, suffer a fit of the vapours that someone outside their neutered, un-Christian circle should rally people in the name of Jesus. Muslims are the anti-Christ. That’s not hyperbole, that’s in their book. They are anti-Christian. Sadiq would have merrily spoke at a carol service not in the spirit of “inter-faith” but because in his opinion what he was saying was BS and it didn’t matter. You far-Left Pharisees who’ve handed over any kind of actual religious responsibilities to hard line Africans sound weak and laughable.

    “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,”

    Put that in your matcha latte at your next inter-faith gathering.

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    2. And I guess you are the actual Mayor of Manchester too? I am not gatekeeping anyone – I have just written to be clear about the deceit of this carol service being promoted in one way and then the reality being something very different.

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  10. I enjoyed reading your views, and especially that you engaged with what TR (or his team) actually said in his emails.

    I know you can’t cover everything in one blog post. But I can’t help thinking that unless you grapple with the way Christianity has been co-opted by the mainstream left in the UK for a long time, you are missing important context.

    Why is it that this carol service has prompted such urgent action from CofE bishops? I can’t quite express the answer to that succinctly. But what seems of utmost importance to them is that their co-opting of Christianity must not be disturbed at all costs.

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  11. Pingback: The Polarisation Express: reflections on Tommy Robinson’s carol concert – Grace + Truth
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