The Ballad of Tommy and the Saxon

There’s a curious thing about Britain’s far-right panto circuit: none of its stars use their real names. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon reinvented himself as Tommy Robinson, and Andy Calladine became Andy Saxon – a name that sounds like he should be selling vinyl at a boot fair in Essex, not wittering on about national identity.

Why the charade? After all, everyone knows who they really are. It’s not as if MI5 is desperately trying to unmask them. No – the pseudonyms aren’t for hiding. They’re for branding.

“Tommy Robinson” has punch. It’s monosyllabic. Anglo-Saxon. Salt of the earth. The kind of name that smokes rollies and says what everyone’s thinking, even when it isn’t. “Stephen Yaxley-Lennon”, by contrast, sounds like he should be lecturing on Post-Colonial Identity at Goldsmiths. “Andy Saxon” carries the subtlety of a National Front tattoo, barely skimming the surface of Anglo nostalgia. It’s marketing – not camouflage.

But that’s the game, isn’t it? This lot don’t want to be known – they want to be mythologised. “Tommy” is no longer a person, he’s a movement. Or rather, a mood. Angry, patriotic, persecuted – and always just one PayPal donation away from launching another righteous crusade against being held accountable for anything.

And the fans lap it up. These aren’t pseudonyms – they’re stage names. Capes for the eternally outraged. Who cares that the man behind the mask is a serial grifter with more convictions than GCSEs? As long as the name stirs the blood and triggers “the libs,” that’s mission accomplished.

They’re not hiding because they fear exposure. They need exposure – it’s the whole business model. The names are weapons – tools for fundraising, for platform-hopping, for whipping up just enough plausible deniability when the legal consequences come knocking. “That wasn’t me, that was Tommy.” Of course it was.

But here’s the punchline. These self-proclaimed patriots, defenders of the plucky British farmer and sovereign salt-of-the-earth types, fall curiously silent when it comes to Nigel Farage’s bromance with Donald Trump. They’ve got the volume turned up to eleven about dinghies in the Channel, but you won’t hear a peep when Nigel grins through a pledge to strike a UK-US trade deal that would shaft British agriculture harder than the Corn Laws.

You’d think a true patriot might object to American corporate beef muscling out Welsh lamb, or our countryside being turned into a dumping ground for US agri-slurry. But no – that’s apparently “pragmatism”. Because when it comes down to it, the only sovereignty they care about is the right to be angry. Facts – like the economic betrayal baked into Farage’s “deal” – don’t fit the narrative. So they’re ignored.

This isn’t about defending Britain. It’s about performing a version of Britain that exists only on mugs, flags, and Facebook groups called “Real Patriots UK”. It’s cosplay – padded out with nostalgia and broadcast in 480p from the footwell of a knackered Transit.

So let’s drop the pretence. Tommy is Stephen. Andy is Calladine. And neither of them gives a toss about farmers, fishermen, or facts – not when there are donations to chase and hashtags to trend.

Because this isn’t a revolution. It’s a rebrand. And you’re the target market.