ANTI-RACISTS, many of them Christians, will challenge far-right agitator “Tommy Robinson” over his attempt to identify Christianity with his message of hatred this weekend.

Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) hosting a carol service is a surreal contrast to his normal routine of bigoted rants and spontaneous punch-ups.

He supposedly found God while in prison for contempt of court for repeating false claims against a Syrian refugee, though he hasn’t shown much contrition for his violation of the Ninth Commandment since. Indeed this is hardly a Damascene conversion given Robinson’s priorities (railing against immigrants and Muslims) seem exactly the same as before.

The recent emergence of Christian nationalism in Britain may have less to do with Robinson’s spiritual journey than with the influence of Donald Trump’s United States over the global far right.

Robinson is always acutely alert to where the money is and the US Christian right is awash with it. We also know, from the White House’s new national security strategy, that it hopes to reshape Europe in its own image.

It declares Europe at risk of “civilisational erasure” from immigration, commits itself to “help Europe correct its current trajectory” and identifies the “the growing influence of patriotic European parties” as the means to do so.

This is a potentially huge boost to the far right in countries like Britain. But it can be turned into a weakness.

A boost, because resources matter.

Robinson has already had legal fees paid by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who addressed the huge far-right demonstration held in London in September.

Their movement will have access to enormous funds, enabling effective propaganda operations and paid organisers.

It’s backed by the most powerful country on Earth — something we saw hints of in the succession of far-right figures hosted by US Vice-President JD Vance on a so-called holiday in England last summer, under the very noses of the supposedly allied British government he was working to undermine.

A factor which again benefits the far right: the liberal Establishment cannot conceive of a breach with Washington, and continues to lick the boots that are kicking it in the ribs. Most recently with a craven surrender to US demands over NHS drug pricing, which will raise the cost of medicine and cost British lives.

But that’s why the apparent asset of being a US asset can be turned against the insurgent right.

Robinson is not the only recipient of US largesse. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is also linked to the US “Maga” movement (he has received free services from the PR firm Capital HQ, linked to Steve Bannon, and is notorious for his frequent transatlantic trips).

Its economic priorities, in particular an acceleration of healthcare privatisation by proposing vouchers allowing access to private providers, align with the US aim — openly avowed in documents like Project 2025 — of turning the NHS into a cash cow for US companies.

We should expose the foreign money behind these so-called “patriotic” movements — and the similarity between the far right’s fixation with privatisation and deregulation with that of Tory and Labour governments. The flood of ex-Tories joining Reform do so because it is a Tory party: it is not “anti-Establishment” at all.

And our message in calling out Robinson’s perversion of the Christian spirit needs to look beyond him to the normalisation of cruelty in the political mainstream.

At Christmas Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, born in a stable, child refugee from King Herod, who urged his followers to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger and visit the prisoner.

That message damns a government that cuts benefits, hounds asylum-seekers and is ready to let eight brave hunger-strikers, some jailed for over a year already though none have faced trial, starve to death rather than address the injustice it has done them.