Yesterday saw the largest ever far right rally taking place in Britain.
(Photo from UPI.com)
This is not to suggest that every participant identifies as far right politically, and some may not even hold most of the views associated with that extremist movement (although this is something I’d like to have a way of establishing). But it was certainly organised by, promoted by, and paid for by some of the overtly far right elite who wish to replace British democracy and tradition with authoritarism, stifle our free speech, turn our national flag into a symbol of hate and rob us of our rights.
Whilst the organisers' claim of attracting the 3 million participants is laughably high, it seems perhaps 110,000 people or so did turn up to show their support for the convicted violent criminal, unashamed Islamophobe and probable millionaire Tommy Robinson, amongst other things.
There was a counter-protest, I think largely organised by valiant groups as Stand Up To Racism, which numbered around 5,000. I am ashamed to have only stood with them in a metaphorical sense.
(Photo from Reuters)
If you feel inclined to support organisations that are standing against the Robinson crowd in a material way then I know organisations such as the afore-mentioned SUTR are taking donations, as are Hope Not Hate and Amnesty International, which are another couple of worth orgs that I believe had a presence.
There is too much to say to comprehensively summarise what happened and what it means, very little of it good. However, a couple of points stood out to me.
Firstly, for all that the controlling elite of the movement claims to be obsessed with the superiority of everything English and the need for national sovereignty, they sure invited a lot of foreigners to lecture us we should do as a country in terms of the main-attraction speakers.
Ăric Zemmour a French politician of the far-right, delivered a soliloquy on the racist and inflammatory conspiracy theory known as the Great Replacement Theory, saying:
We are both subject to the same process of the Great Replacement of our European peoples by peoples coming from the south and of Muslim culture. You and we are being colonised by our former colonies
This is a protest that claimed to be - albeit there was no chance it ever was going to be - an effort to “Unite the Kingdom”.
A Belgian politician, Philip Dewinter claimed that:
It has to be clear that Islam is our real enemy, we have to get rid of Islam. Islam does not belong in Europe and Islam does not belong in the UK.
A Dutch commentator, Eva Vlaardingerbroek, put out this absolute inflammatory nonsense:
They are demanding the sacrifice of our children on the altar of mass migration. Letâs not beat about the bush â this is the rape, replacement, and murder of our people⌠Remigration is possible, and itâs up to us to make it happen. We are Generation Remigration.
Ada Lluch, a Spanish influencer, claimed:
The government are taking our money and financing the great demographic replacement of our nation.â
And of course the biggest celebrity who spoke, via video link, was Elon Musk. With comments that are as deranged, anti-democratic , anti-patriotic as those that we have increasingly have come to expect from him.
A few choice snippets, courtesy of the Independent:
Elon Musk called for a change of government in the UK and railed against the âwoke mind virusâ as he spoke at Tommy Robinsonâs rally in London.
The X owner claimed a âdissolution of Parliamentâ is needed and said âmassive uncontrolled migrationâ was contributing to the âdestruction of Britainâ in comments via video link.
And Indy100:
He went on to address what he called “the reasonable centre” â people who “ordinarily wouldnât get involved in politics, who just want to live their lives. They donât want that, theyâre quiet, they just go about their business.”
“My message is to them: if this continues, that violence is going to come to you, you will have no choice,” he said.
“Youâre in a fundamental situation here. Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you.
“You either fight back or you die, thatâs the truth, I think.”
Given the UK is supposedly internationally renowned (and hated by the people running this particular event) for its policing of speech, arresting people for tweets and so on - and yes we do in fact have a ban on inciting people to racial hatred so if you plead guilty to that offense then you do face legal consequences - it is quite incredible to me that these foreign entities were allowed to spew such obvious vitriol, hatred and calls to violence to a crowd of 100,000+ people hyped up on Tommy’s lies.
“Two tier policing”, some might say. Especially in an era where we are arresting hundreds of peaceful protestors for holding up signs saying ““I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” or cartoons from a mainstream magazine.
Again, let’s remember, that the claimed aim of this event - its literal name - was to Unite The Kingdom. I suppose they didn’t specify which kingdom. The fake “patriots” organising it clearly had a kingdom other than the United Kingdom in mind.
It’s always easiest to see the hypocrisy in people you disagree with I admit. But this time it’s surely unmissable.
Imagine if instead of a foreigner who looks like Elon Musk - and also happens to use his status as the world’s richest man to support and fund the type of groups that organised this misinformed disarray - we had a foreigner that looks like anything that fits people’s stereotype of “a Muslim” who was avidly and explicitly agitating for the UK government to be overthrown immediately and that it is perfectly reasonable - and indeed necessary - to use violence in order to combat your ideological enemies
Again, this is exactly what the organisers of these events claim to fear - the whole “the UK is under Sharia law and that’s why no-one dares leave their house in London in case they get blown up by an Islamic terrorist” nonsense.
Sharia law is not the law of the land, nor is there any sign that it will be at any point in the future. Friends that live in London report that people do still leave their houses, believe it or not.
Replace the word “Sharia” with the phrase “far right and foreign billionaire friendly” and you get a threat that qualitatively parallels original paranoid conspiracy claim but appears to be rather more likely to happen.
Even in the short term - despite supposedly being a group who often claim to be substantially more infused with a respect of British law and order than others - the calls to violence were unfortunately directly acted upon by (a minority of) the protestors.
The Met police report that 26 officers were injured, some seriously so:
The injuries include broken teeth, a possible broken nose, a concussion, a prolapsed disc and a head injury.
The Tommy Robinson protestors deviated from the organised route in order to encircle the smaller group of counter-protestors:
âWhen officers moved in to stop them they faced unacceptable violence,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.
“They were assaulted with kicks and punches.
“Bottles, flares and other projectiles were thrown.”
The last thing that I want to document for now is once again the difference between the claim of what the organisers and their followers are against, are “terrified” of - and their actual behaviour as exhibited at this event.
The original advertising I saw for this protest referred to it as a celebration of free speech - a “free speech festival”. Sounds fun and wholesome, right? Well, in a different world, perhaps.
What did we actually see? A set of speakers that were largely constrained to basically one relatively marginal set of extremist political beliefs, attacks on the folk who were, as far as I can tell, peacefully counter-protesting, and perhaps most incredible of all, the star speakers literally calling for a crackdown on people’s free speech right:
âThis is a religious war,â said Brian Tamaki, leader of New Zealandâs Destiny Church. âIslam, Hinduism, BahĂĄĘźĂ, Buddhism â whatever else youâre into â theyâre all false. Weâve got to clean our countries up. Get rid of everything that doesnât receive Jesus Christ. Ban any public expression of other religions in our Christian nations. Ban halal. Ban burqas. Ban mosques, temples, shrines â we donât want those in our countries.â
Was it a rogue speaker? Certainly not, if the reaction of the supposedly freedom-loving crowd was to be taken seriously:
…a big crowd cheering speeches that called for banning all public expression of non-Christian religions,
No freedom of speech. No freedom religion. No freedom of expression. No freedom of assembly. People associated with the organisers of the event seem desperate to deprive us citizens of our actual rights, visible not least in Reform’s campaign to remove some of the very laws that protect them.
Sky reporter Tom Cheshire notes that an appeal to Christianity was something relatively novel to this rally of the right compared to others he has covered.
That’s been a difference with this rally compared to past ones I’ve covered - an overt Christian nationalism.
People carried wooden crosses. One person had a light-up crucifix.
When the crowd arrived at Whitehall, they were led from the stage in a chant of ‘Christ is king’. And then a public recital of the Lord’s Prayer shortly after that. It’s an important difference. Not just a flag to rally around, but a religion too.
