How Tommy Robinson’s right hand man led the EDL to hijack murders of three children

Hours after the frenzied attack on a group of children and their teacher at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, Danny Tommo made a video for his thousands of followers. 

Tommo, whose real name is Daniel Thomas, is often referred to as the right hand man of English Defence League (EDL) co-founder Tommy Robinson. 

He titled the eight-minute clip, which has racked up 67,000 views on Youtube so far, ‘Get ready! We are making plans!’. 

In the driver’s seat of a car, he slaps his hands together and becomes increasingly emotional as he urges action after the terrible massacre which resulted in the murder of three young girls – Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven – and injured eight other children and two adults at a dance and yoga studio in Southport on Monday afternoon. 

‘If this fella has come off a boat, s***. Even if he hasn’t come off a boat, I’m ready to go,’ Tommo said. ‘We need to be going to the Home Office and we need to be making sure none of them can leave that building. We need to do something very extreme to make them listen to what we are doing. 

‘The fact that young, tiny, vulnerable, little kids are being stabbed on the streets of England – is that where we’re at? Is that where we’re at?’

Social media was at the time overrun with speculation about the knifeman’s identity, including the misinformation that his name was ‘Ali Al-Shakati’ and that he was a Muslim immigrant who arrived in the UK on a small boat last year. Disgraced internet personality Andrew Tate, who boasts 9.8 million followers on X, falsely called the knifeman an ‘illegal’ immigrant in a video posted to the site as did Robinson. 

It has since been revealed that the 17-year-old suspect is Axel Rudakubana, born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents and that he has no known links to Islam.

Tommo went on to tell his audience that they had to ‘mobilise’. 

‘What are we going to do? Wait until one of our kids is gone? Wait until our kids are attacked? It has to go now. We have to literally mobilise… 

‘Forget work, forget the holidays you have booked, we have to hit the streets and make a huge impact. All around the country. Every city needs to go up. Everywhere.’

On Tuesday night, barely 36 hours after the atrocity, hundreds of rioters descended on the grieving seaside town of Southport, targeting their fury on a mosque just a short walk away from the dance class venue. Crowds threw bricks at riot officers as a police van was set alight and homes and businesses damaged. More than 50 officers were injured with 27 requiring hospital treatment. 

The chairman of the mosque, Ibrahim Hussein, who was trapped inside, described how the building shook as angry rioters attacked the mosque with bricks and hand-made missiles. 

In a statement on Tuesday night, Merseyside Police said they believed supporters of the anti-islam EDL were behind the disorder in Southport. It was reported that a dedicated Telegram channel was set up after the dance group attack with members given a time to congregate outside the mosque with the message ‘English lads rise up’ and instructions for people to ensure their faces were covered. 

On Wednesday, Tommo was back with another livestream and made no comment on the violence that had erupted in Southport. Instead, he was calling for more action, across the country. 

‘Now is not the time for flowers, now is not the time for visuals,’ he said. ‘Now is the time for us to make an impact. There needs to be a reaction in every city. This needs to be a collective action.’

He told his viewers that he had travelled to London to protest outside Downing Street and attempted to make it clear he was attending with ‘righteous anger’ but not violence.

‘They [the government] are the ones who need to feel the full force of our anger tomorrow… Not violence, anger. There’s a distinct difference between violence and anger.’

While at the protest, Tommo filmed himself leading the crowds in a chant of: ‘We want our country back.’

More than 100 demonstrators at the event were arrested after clashing with police officers. Fireworks and flares were set off near a statue of Winston Churchill and towards the gates of Downing Street. 

That same night, riots took place across the country. In Hartlepool, a police car was set alight and a mosque came under attack. Businesses had their windows smashed and police were pelted with eggs, bottles and bricks.

In Manchester, forty people, who included children and men wearing balaclavas reported the Manchester Evening News, gathered outside a Holiday Inn hotel that was being used to house asylum seekers. They were reported to have thrown bottles, rocks and bricks at police officers armed in riot gear. 220 miles away in Aldershot, people protested outside a hotel, carrying signs with slogans such as ‘no apartments for illegals’ and ‘Deport them, don’t support them’. 

These demonstrations were organised on social media in Facebook groups, on Reddit and on the social platform X under hashtags ‘enough is enough’, ‘save our children’ and ‘stop the boats’. 

While weather warnings and downpours may have dampened further immediate plans, flyers advertising future demonstrations all over the UK are not difficult to find.

During research for this article, Metro uncovered planned events outside an Islamic centre in Belfast, in Liverpool and Glasgow in the weeks ahead. The language used is couched in patriotic paranoia: the protesters are ‘lions’, they are ‘waking up’, they will take back power from the government and ‘its puppet masters’.

The comments continue in the same vein – protestors are ‘patriots’, England is the ‘motherland’ and the ‘MSM’ [mainstream media] is not to be trusted. 

The prime minister issued a grim warning to the rioters as well as to the social media companies where so many of their events are planned and organised. 

‘These thugs are mobile. They move from community to community and we must have a policing response that can do the same,’ Keir Starmer said. 

‘Let me also say to large social media companies and the people who run them: violent disorder, clearly whipped up online, is also a crime. It is happening on your premises and the law must be upheld everywhere.’

Just hours earlier, Tommo had threatened further unrest in a post on X, demanding that the government needed to ‘declare a state of emergency and summon Parliament immediately to discuss legislation aimed at halting the slaughter of our children and the alarming rise in serious knife crime.’

Failure to act, he warned, would ‘lead to further protests across the UK.’

With social media already ablaze regarding protests taking place this weekend, Merseyside Police have issued a statement that they aware of online speculation about future events.

‘There are extensive plans and considerable police resources in place to quickly deal with anyone intent on causing disorder over the coming days,’ Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Sims said.

‘We will look to bring to justice every person who is identified committing criminal damage and acts of violence against police staff, officers and our communities.’

Metro has gone to Daniel Thomas for comment.

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