The Oxford Union has invited Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who identifies as Tommy Robinson, to speak at a Week 5 debate on the motion ‘This house believes the West is right to be suspicious of Islam’. The invitation has generated backlash from University societies, senior Union officials, and Stand Up to Racism UK.
Yaxley-Lennon’s invitation has provoked censure from national organisation Stand Up to Racism, which posted a joint statement on social media with Oxford Against Discrimination to condemn the invitation “in the strongest possible terms”. They also called on Oxford Union President Arwa Elrayess to confirm that the invitation has been rescinded; “issue a public statement apologising for extending the invitation and promising full transparency with speakers’ events”; and “acknowledge the harm” caused to students by the decision. Stand Up to Racism has organised a protest to take place outside the Oxford Union on the 28th May, the day of the Week 5 Debate.
Several University societies condemned the decision in statements to Cherwell, with Oxford African and Caribbean Society (ACS) telling Cherwell “granting Robinson an academic stage at a time of increased far-right activity confers a degree of respectability to ideologies that have historically marginalised our communities.” It Happens Here (IHH) accused Robinson of using sexual violence cases “to advance anti-Muslim sentiment”, and said his presence at the Union “ signals to survivors that their experiences are being instrumentalised, instead of taken seriously”.
Oxford Student Greens told Cherwell that “there is no space for the kind of inflammatory, hateful rhetoric”. The Oxford Labour Club published a statement on Instagram saying it was “disgusted” by the invitation, writing that while “free speech is important… that does not mean that Tommy Robinson, a far-right extremist convicted of assault and harassment, should be platformed by the Union”. The Student Union (SU) published a statement recognising that “many students may be concerned about recently announced, upcoming high-profile speaker events in Oxford”. The SU expressed “support and solidarity” with any students affected, “particularly those from marginalised groups”.
Condemnation has also come from senior Oxford Union officials. Cherwell understands that Prajwal Pandey, Oxford Union Librarian for Trinity Term, criticised the decision to invite Yaxley-Lennon in a speech before the Week 2 debate at the Union. A petition to call for a vote by Union members on the invitation to Tommy Robinson was circulated online by the Overheard at Oxford Instagram account.
Cherwell has also seen a letter of resignation by Shermar Pryce, formally Chief Advisor to the President, in response to the decision to invite Yaxley-Lennon. Pryce cites his displeasure at what he dubs a “clown show”, and accused the Union of “appealing to malformed conceptions of ‘free speech’”: “To not rethink this invite, after members of all backgrounds and dispositions have expressed their concerns and fears, borders on malicious.” The letter further alleges that the decision was made without the knowledge of the majority of committee members.
Candidates in the re-poll for the position of President-Elect, including the successful candidate Gareth Lim, unanimously condemned the invite when asked for their opinion by Cherwell during the election campaign. However, speaking to Cherwell after his victory, Lim repeated that he would not have invited Yaxley-Lennon to the Society, but said the Union should “stand by [its] decisions” and said incumbent President Arwa Elrayess had “done a pretty good job” at deciding who she wanted to invite. He said Elrayess was considering changes to the debate format to “ensure that people like Tommy Robinson answer the questions” and that it will be “only after we see the debate” that we could judge whether the invitation to Yaxley-Lennon was “the right thing to do”.
The reported invitation comes within the context of longstanding accusations against Yaxley-Lennon of Islamophobia and intimidation. He was a co-founder of the English Defence League in 2009, whose supporters have repeatedly targeted Muslim communities and mosques across the UK. He has also been convicted on multiple occasions, including for contempt of court in 2018 after livestreaming defendants accused of sexual exploitation outside a trial in Leeds, in breach of reporting restrictions. He was jailed for 18 months after admitting to the charge.
Yaxley-Lennon has faced further convictions for assault and harassment, and has been widely criticised for his rhetoric, accused of fuelling anti-Muslim sentiment. His public statements have included describing Muslim refugees to the UK as “fake refugees”, a 2011 threat to “every single Muslim watching….the Islamic community would feel the full force of the English Defence League” if another Islamist terror attack were to take place, and a 2018 admission that he “doesn’t care” if he “incites fear” of the UK’s Muslim community.
He previously warned members of the press: “If you’re a journalist and you think your office or your home is a safe space…it’s not”, and referred to a female BBC journalist as a “slag” after Yaxley-Lennon was questioned by police over an alleged assault of a man at London St Pancras Station in 2025. Yaxley-Lennon was not charged over the incident.
Defending her decision to invite Yaxley-Lennon in an article in The Telegraph, Elrayess wrote: “For more than 200 years, the Oxford Union has existed to host debates – not to platform views uncritically, but to subject them to the most rigorous scrutiny. You do not invite a speaker to endorse them: you invite them so that their ideas can be examined, and their claims tested.”
Elrayess also appeared on the right-wing television news channel GB News to explain her defence of both the debate and the invitation to Yaxley-Lennon. She addressed concerns about the security risk raised by the event, and called it “a shame that we can’t even debate these topics anymore without the feeling of things crashing down.”
A spokesperson for the Oxford Union previously told Cherwell that the Union gives “members the opportunity to challenge…a broad range of speakers” and “only host[s] speakers who agree to be challenged”.
Oxford’s Turning Point UK society also defended the invitation. Their President described
Yaxley-Lennon as “a culturally relevant figure in British politics” and that “the debate is of incredible importance”. They described the event as “the perfect opportunity for those who vehemently disagree with Tommy Robinson to put his ideas to the test”.
Stephen Yaxley-Lennon was contacted for comment.
