How Tommy Robinson radicalized my mum

“I am England til I die! I’m England till I die. I know I am, I’m sure I am, I am England til I die!” Mum’s in her element. She’s belting out the words like she’s leading “Jerusalem” at a WI meeting. Only she’s not. She’s on a far-Right march in London, singing at the top of her lungs, the thrill of the words marred only by chants of “Nazi scum!” from the protestors who outnumber her. She just sings louder. It was 2013, her first ever march. A few months before, she’d discovered Tommy Robinson on Facebook. A few months before that, Islamists had murdered Lee Rigby outside his barracks in Woolwich — and something happened to mum. An anger exploded, a flashpoint I couldn’t get my head round. Where did it come from? How did she go from a shy Cumbrian farm girl to a 60-year old gran marching w