Press outnumbered police, who outnumbered protesters. One month ago, Tommy Robinson filled London with flags and rage. His appearance at Westminster Magistrates’ Court this morning (13 October 2025) was a greyer, quieter affair.
Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) faced trial for refusing to supply the Pin to his phone to police while entering the UK last July. He appeared under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which allows police to stop people passing through UK ports to determine whether they are involved in terrorism and obliges detainees to provide the Pins for electronic devices.
In reports from the trial, PC Mitchell Thorogood of the Channel Tunnel policing team said he believed the driver was Robinson before stopping the vehicle. The court also heard that officers found a bag containing £13,370 and €1,910 in the Bentley Robinson was driving. Robinson reportedly told police “not a chance, bruv” when they demanded the Pin to his phone.
Robinson says he withheld the passcode to protect his contacts. Posting on X this morning, he wrote: “I’m facing terrorism charges, under terrorism legislation, because I didn’t want to give the state my sources of information as a journalist.” In a video filmed on a coach on his way to court, Robinson said his information and contacts should be protected. He claimed that victims of rape by Islamic grooming gangs had asked him not to share the details they were providing. Robinson also said that Elon Musk had paid his legal fees and complained about being tried by a “state-appointed judge” without a jury. (It is standard practice for Robinson’s charge – which carries a maximum jail sentence of three months – to be heard in a magistrates’ court.)
Anton had woken at 3am to drive up from the Somerset Levels. He said it was “very strange” for Robinson to be charged under the Terrorism Act. Pointing to the Royal Coat of Arms – a shield flanked by a lion and a unicorn – above the court’s door, he said: “Look at the size of it, I mean, come on, it says it there.” If the lion represented the government and the unicorn the people, the two were meant to “govern together”. “It’s the same old story, isn’t it?” he told me. “You had it back with Oliver Cromwell and King Charles I.” Other historical touchstones featured on a placard he had made: “King Alfred the Great, Anglo-Saxon law of tithes, vails and wards – one of the best systems ever.” Jesus featured too. Alfred’s system, he explained, was “based on the biblical Ten Commandments – you can speak to David Starkey about all that.” Anton held that monarchs and political leaders were “only custodians”. The motto Dieu et mon droit – “God and my right” – was wrong, he said; it should have been “God and his right.”
Robinson passed by as we spoke and was quickly swallowed by a scrum of cameras. He joined the queue of defendants and hopeful spectators, but was ushered inside through a second door after the crowd around him disrupted others waiting in line. His flat-capped security stood guard outside, where they were asked for directions by bemused defendants.
After Anton went inside to watch Robinson, a man approached me. Ranjan said he had been “just going for a walk and I was like, ‘look at these fucking c***s’.” He’d seen the flags and realised, “oh yeah, it’s because of the white supremacy transatlantic culture war.”
But although he opposed Robinson “in almost every way”, he did not think he should have been required to hand over his password. “On this, a broken clock is right twice a day, and he shouldn’t be done under any section of terror legislation for the password thing.” He reasoned: “If you’re going to do someone, there needs to be an event that you’re doing them under… then you’ve got to say, what’s the evidence? If the evidence is simply ‘we think you’re suspicious so you have to hand over your password’, then why should he?”
It’s a reasonable question. The Home Office published a consultation on Schedule 7 earlier this year. Dan Jarvis, the security minister, wrote that because Schedule 7 – as well as Schedule 3 of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 – “provide counter-terrorism police with exceptional powers… it is important that there are strong and robust safeguards in place”. But, he added, the schedules are “important national security powers available at the UK border”.
The BBC reports that the trial is expected to last two days. If found guilty, Robinson could be jailed for up to three months or fined up to £2,500. Its thunder may not have been audible here, but a national storm is brewing around Robinson.
[Further reading: Tommy Robinson’s day of rage]
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