This Saturday, 24 May 2025, sees the so-called Great British National Strike taking place in a wide range of British cities.
It’s a strange sort of strike, being on a bank-holiday weekend day where not as many people would be working anyway, and I’ve heard of no involvement from the unions or in fact no plans to actually strike. I think it’s more of a confusingly named protest.
However, I think it’s an insidious, deceptive event, and one, that if anything, needs counter-protesting against.
What are the demands? Mainly they can be summarised as “we hate Labour” and the anti-democratic “we didn’t really like the result of the last election so sack Starmer and do it again”.
However, based on viewing a few YouTube videos and reading some social media posts, they are particularly focusing on a smorgasbord of issues, the key ones probably being:
- Illegal immigration, although I’m not sure what the demand is here, illegal immigration already being… illegal. And our current Prime Minister, who they hate, made a particularly nasty speech about immigration recently that you’d think would have addressed their concerns.
- The imaginary “two tier justice system” - the claim that people with right ring views and/or the oppressed white male is prosecuted harder by the justice system than other folk.
- Opposition to pro-environmental policies, especially anything labelled “net zero”.
- Freedom of speech. I’m not sure who thinks they’re being silenced here. I mean, they’re holding a protest. People who agree with the rest of the list here are constantly on the media, in Parliament, in positions of power and so on. What on earth do they want to say that they can’t?
- Interestingly, given the rest: the cutting of Personal Independence Payments, the abolishment of the Winter Fuel Allowance and other methods of social and welfare support.
- The changes in rules for farmers with respect to inheritance tax.
- That we contribute towards supporting Ukraine in their war against Russia.
- “Grooming gangs” - again, I’m uncertain what they want given the one I’m sure they have in mind, whilst a horrific incident in British history, has since been, contra Elon Musk, endlessly publicised with the perpetrators prosecuted where possible.
- An accusation that Labour won the election “based on criminality, fraud, lies and deception”.
- Something vague about how ‘masculinity’ has been banned or curtailed, oppressing men.
In other words, it’s mostly right-wing culture war stuff, all mashed together. There are very few specific policy demands that I’ve seen outside of ‘pretend the last election didn’t happen’. It’s mainly just a list of grievances. Without clear demands, what could possibly be achieved?
Holding grievances against immigrants, being obsessed with (only Pakistani) rape gangs, seen net-zero as a bogeyman and having sympathies for aggressive “strong man” authoritarian leaders like Putin in his pursuit of violent conquest are themes often seen in British far-right discourse.
The thing is, there are some reasonable issues here. I’d quite happily protest number 5, the cuts in welfare. The cuts were cruel and inhumane. But if I turn up for that, I suppose I’d also be endorsing the myth of the two-tier justice system, that I want the planet to burn, that I want to allow Russia to successfully invade the rest of Europe and some demonstrably false claim that our elections are fake. For the most part it seems basically a pro-right culture war protest.
It smacks to me of those Facebook posts people share far and wide that have some entirely reasonable sentiment (often “we should look after ex-soldiers”) but when you click through to the original poster you find that they are probably bots that also post extremely racist memes.
Some of the original announcements seem to come from a place of dangerous paranoid delusion:
“…Great Britain is under attack. You and I, as you watch this video, you are under attack.”
And that:
…the coordinated efforts of our corrupt, self-serving government, judiciary, mainstream media, local councils and wider large-scale corporations and religious institutions are working together to destroy our very way of life, our British way of life
So I hope no-one turns up to this. And if they do, I hope there are counter protests that take the sensible issues on board but make it clear that the people who espouse all of the above views are not the majority of the UK.
I think this flyer about the event was the final nail in the coffin for me.
I mean, just look at the imagery. A threatening group of medieval knights dressed in English flags coming after “corrupt Labour”. It’s well-known that the far right are “obsessed with medieval history” and like to use imagery based on the crusades. And I’m fairly confident that if these protests do take off then these people will be part of the crowd.
Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson, is a big fan. Say no more.
I think Councillor Derek Glen of the SNP sums it up correctly:
…while people will rightly be angry about some of policy failings of the dismal performance of Labour since they took power at Westminster, and have every right to protest; this event appears to be designed to co-opt people in support of a somewhat hidden, very right-wing agenda