Robinson was born Stephen Christopher Yaxley in Luton. In an interview with Victoria Derbyshire on BBC Radio Five live in 2010, he said that his parents “were Irish immigrants to this country”. His mother, who worked at a local bakery, remarried when Robinson was still young; his stepfather, Thomas Lennon, whose surname Robinson took, worked at the local Vauxhall car plant.
Robinson married in 2011 and is the father of three children. He owns a sunbed shop in Luton.
According to Robinson, after he left school he applied to study aircraft engineering at Luton Airport: “I got an apprenticeship six hundred people applied for, and they took four people on”. He qualified in 2003 after five years of study, but then he was convicted for drunken assault of an off-duty police officer. He served a 12-month prison sentence, and as a result lost his job at Luton Airport owing to security measures imposed since the September 11 attacks.
Robinson joined the British National Party in 2004. When questioned about this by the BBC’s Andrew Neil in June 2013, he said that he had left after one year, saying, “I didn’t know Nick Griffin was in the National Front, I didn’t know non-whites couldn’t join the organisation. I joined, I saw what it was about, it was not for me”.
As leader of the EDL, Robinson regularly wore a bullet-proof vest when appearing in public, telling the BBC that his business and his home have been attacked, and that he had been personally threatened by armed Muslims.
Despite being accused of antisemitism, Robinson has declared his support for the Jewish people and Israel, calling himself a Zionist
Thanks for the additional context.