This weekend UKIP’s NEC will decide whether to allow members to hear a conference motion proposing that former EDL leader Tommy Robinson is offered membership of the party. UKIP’s Family and Children spokesman Alan Craig has submitted a motion to be debated and voted on at their party conference, which is expected to be approved for debate by UKIP’s NEC on Sunday.

The proposed motion in full reads:

“Conference believes that Tommy Robinson stands on the long English tradition of anti-establishment rebels with a cause from Robin Hood to the Suffragettes and Nigel Farage; admires his campaigns both for #FreeSpeech and to expose the authorities’ decades-long silence and inaction over industrial-scale child sexual abuse by rape gangs; and requests the NEC to offer him membership of UKIP.”

Earlier this year, Neil Hamilton welcomed ‘alt-light’ internet celebrities Paul Joseph Watson, Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad), Mark Meechan (Count Dankula), and Milo Yiannopoulos to UKIP as party members.

Nigel Farage said recently “everybody hates Tommy Robinson“, when he was leader he proscribed former EDL members from joining. Now the party is on the verge of embracingthe EDL’s founder…

UPDATE: A UKIP spokesperson has been in touch to say that the NEC will not be considering the proposed motion, as it would go against the party’s constitution and therefore require an extraordinary general meeting to enact.