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Years ago, working for a ­different newspaper, I had brief dealings with Tommy Robinson.

It was in the days when he traded as the co-founder, leader and spokesman of the English Defence League.

You know the ones?

They had those “peaceful protests” in town centres where much booze is peacefully consumed, before some property is gently smashed up, with abuse whispered at whoever’s around.

Those ones. Anyways. I phoned up Mr Robinson to get his version of events, left a message, and he came back within the hour.

He was polite, articulate, reasonable, and I remember thinking when I hung up the phone how utterly, utterly, ­dangerous he was.

(Image: PA)

That was a while ago, and Robinson seemed to go quiet for a time, jacking in the EDL in 2013 because elements of it were “too extreme”.

His fallow period seemed to be when Ukip were in vogue – as if they acted as some weird safety valve.

But now they’ve gone and Robinson, below, is gently oozing back on to the scene. He got out of prison this week, on bail, before a trial for contempt of court. His release was ­greeted with joy by followers.

He’s now off to chill with his family for a couple of weeks.

But meanwhile there are plans afoot for him.

An American called Steve Bannon, currently knocking about Europe, is a fan.

Bannon claims to have been the ­architect of Donald Trump’s election victory and was – for a while – his right-hand man. He’s on manoeuvres, ­dining with Farage, meeting Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg.

He says: “All I am trying to be is the infrastructure, ­globally, for the global populist movement.”

But what he represents is not populism. This is the neatly ­packaged rise of the far right.

And Robinson is Bannon’s ideal man. He recently ­ranted: “Tommy Robinson is the f***ing backbone of this country.”

He really isn’t. But the danger is Bannon and company moulding him to be. They have willing volunteers.

For someone like Katie Hopkins, who does nothing more than crave publicity, the far right is a chance to cling on to the limelight.

For Boris and Farage, drifting away from mainstream politics, a new ­movement has its appeal. These are dangerous times. Labour is trying, very publicly and painfully, to deal with ­allegations of anti-Semitism.

The Tories are fractured by Brexit, and the lid is yet to blow on the Islamophobia in their party.

In the meantime Bannon and his kind are limbering up. In the US the ­right-wing fringe of the right wing is known as the Tea Party.

If we’re not careful – very careful – we will have our own version here.

We are already stocking up on Mad Hatters.