Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally in central London attracted tens of thousands of people on Saturday to protest against the Westminster political establishment and the mass migration policies imposed on the country.
Up to four thousand police officers were deployed on Saturday to police duelling protests in London, Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom demonstration and an anti-Israel protest over the so-called “Nakba” of 1948, when many Palestinians were displaced amid war. Despite the clamouring from the left-wing Labour government over the threat posed by the supposed “far-right”, only a handful out of the tens of thousands have been arrested at the time of this reporting. The Metropolitan Police said 31 people had been arrested at both rallies on Saturday, without specifying which rallies the arrests occurred at.
Robinson, a longtime activist who began his career attempting to expose Muslim child rape grooming gangs in England, urged the crowd of supporters to become politically active, warning that the next general election in Britain could determine the fate of the nation.
“What will you sacrifice, what will you give? Apathy has led to a government like Kier Starmer. He was elected off nine million votes. Twenty million of us didn’t vote. If we stood up and said what we thought at the ballot box, we wouldn’t have had open borders, we wouldn’t have been betrayed. We have to get political, we have to get involved,” he said.
“Violence is coming to us, it’s already here. Hostile communities have been imported into our nation, who are not going to integrate; they are not going to assimilate. We are heading to a clash, we can beat that through the ballot box, but we have to wake up the fifty per cent that don’t vote,” Robinson said.
Robinson, who recently returned to Britain from a trip across America, led the large crowd, which waved the British Union Jack, English St George, and Donald Trump flags, in a chant of “U.S.A.”.
The veteran street organiser said that Saturday’s demonstration would not have been possible without donations from concerned Americans, which he said totalled in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Robinson also noted that the demonstration would not have been possible without the smaller, individual donations from average Britons, whom he credited as the backbone of the movement.
“We have just taken over our entire capital city with patriots. There is a spiritual and cultural awakening happening right now. Something huge is happening in this beautiful country,” he told supporters in Parliament Square.
However, Robinson saved his biggest praise for Tesla boss Elon Musk, saying: “None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for one man, who didn’t choose the life or the money, he chose to fight for humanity, he chose to fight for the most important thing we have, and that’s our free speech.”
In contrast, Robinson cast the vast majority of elected officials in the House of Commons opposite the stage as being “traitors” to Britain.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has attempted to use the Unite the Kingdom rally for his own ends. After coming off a disastrous performance in the local elections just a week prior, and as he continues to be embroiled in Westminster drama over potential challenges to his leadership from within the Labour Party, Starmer attempted to turn to his favourite boogeyman of the supposed “far-right” to marshal his forces and justify his continued presence in Number 10.
In an op-ed in LBC released on Saturday morning ahead of the Robinson rally, Starmer cast those in attendance as seeking to divide people “by race, religion, and suspicion of anyone who looks or lives differently from themselves.”
“I reject that completely. It is a betrayal of the values that have held this country together for generations – values that the majority of people still believe in. It is an attack on Britain itself. And I will not let the likes of Tommy Robinson use their hate to drag our country backwards,” Starmer declared.
The deeply unpopular prime minister also boasted of his government having blocked multiple international speakers from attending the rally on Saturday, including elected officials such as Polish MEP Dominik Tarczyński. The Law and Justice (PiS) politician, alongside Dutch activist Eva Vlaardingerbroek, Spanish activist Ada Lluch, American YouTuber Don Keith, and American political commentator Joey Mannarino, have threatened to sue Starmer for defamation for branding them as “far-right agitators” and blocking their entry to the country.
Doubling down on Saturday, Starmer said: “I refuse to stand by and allow that poison to be imported into the UK. That is why my government has already revoked visas from foreign extremists who planned to attend today’s march and whip up hatred. And we will not hesitate to do it again. That is what it means to build a stronger, fairer Britain.”
Starmer was comparatively milder in his stance towards the coinciding pro-Palestinian protest on Saturday, which he said represents a “just” cause that his government supports. However, he said that his government will “act decisively” if any of the participants used the demonstration as a “cover for hatred” or antisemitism.
“Perpetrators should be in no doubt: regardless of ideology, when they attack our minority communities, we will use the full force of the law. We will support the police to make arrests and pursue charges. And we will do it swiftly,” he said.
Unusually, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) issued a public warning ahead of the Unite the Kingdom rally, warning of potential police action against speech crimes, such as so-called hate speech.
Director of Public Prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson, said: “Everyone has the right to protest and to express their views freely. That right is a cornerstone of our democracy. However, it does not extend to using words, images or symbols to spread hatred, incite violence or cause fear and intimidation within our communities.”
“This is not about restricting free speech. This is about preventing crime, maintaining public order and protecting the public, particularly at a time of heightened tensions. Where the line into criminality is crossed, we will not hesitate to prosecute,” he warned.
The intervention from the CPS was criticised by former Attorney General Suella Braverman, who defected from the Conservatives to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK after leaving office.
“How intriguing that you’ve chosen not to post guidance like this before the numerous hate marches we’ve seen in London – all of which have involved antisemitic chants, slogans, symbols and banners. Two-tier policing at its finest,” Braverman noted.
Indeed, the Metropolitan Police said that there have been 33 large pro-Palestine protests in London since the October 7th terror attacks on Israel in 2023. The Met said that it had to change the route of the rallies on 21 occasions, 17 times in order to “protect Jewish communities because the organisers were trying to assemble near, march past or finish near synagogues.”
“We have routinely seen arrests for racially and religiously aggravated public order offences, for stirring up racial hatred and for supporting terrorist organisations. It is not normal to see criminality of this nature or on this scale at what are billed as peaceful protests,” the police force said.