It appears that the Unite The Kingdom rally in London organised by Tommy Robinson and others has been somewhat of a triumph. Approximately (by my estimate) 100,000 people attended and the event went off remarkably peaceably.
I was not able to attend having a whole host of other things to do on that day but from what I saw of the demo online this morning it was nothing like what the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer painted it as. This was not a ‘far right’ demo not in the least, sure there might have been some who might be classed as far right who attended but then all demonstrations attract the occasional fraggle and extremist. I’ve been on Leftist demonstrations where ideological horrors such as the Stalin Society have turned up but their presence was not representative of the views of the majority who had attended these demonstrations. I would say that the same rule would apply to the Unite The Kingdom rally, there were probably a few nutcases there but they were not the majority.
From what I could gather from my distant vantage point, The Unite The Kingdom rally was not a gathering of hard care activists but instead were ordinary Britons, Men and Women, Black and White ones, Christian, Jewish, Atheist and a spattering of recovered or liberal Muslims. But whatever they were and whatever creed they followed the overall impression I got from the coverage was it was ordinary decent Britons expressing their displeasure at the way that the country is being managed or rather mismanaged.
Did I agree with all that went on there and what I saw, of course not. I don’t think I’ve ever attended a demonstration whether as a participant, organiser or a representative of the Press, where I have agreed with every person attending or every speech made or every action taken by those involved. I got a bad feeling from what looks like those on the march importing from the USA Christian identity stuff and handing out crucifixes to participants. Whilst that sort of thing probably plays well with some activists, I don’t think it might play well outside of that grouping as Britain has, because of centuries of religious conflict, some ‘hot’ conflict and some much cooler but still nasty, taken a view that religion is a personal matter rather than something you shout about in the streets.
However apart from that criticism, which is a minor one in the great scheme of things, this event was a triumph. It has also metaphorically punched Starmer on the nose by not being all the things that Starmer said it would be. He said it would be a demonstration filled with violent fascist thugs when it turned out to be nothing of the sort.
Where there was violent rhetoric and hatred was in the pro-’Palestinian’ demonstration that took place in Central London at the same time. According to some reports I’ve seen there were calls for ‘intifada’ and chants to murder the organisers of the Unite march and chants approving of the murder of conservative speaker and influencer Charlie Kirk. Whilst there were probably some deeply unpleasant people who might have turned out for Tommy Robinson, there seemed to be a far greater number of unpleasant people at the ‘Palestine’ march.
Mr Robinson and his team’s great achievement was to confound the dishonest rhetoric of Starmer. Prior towars the demonstration. Starmer went out of his way to smear and threaten the Unite demonstrators but we saw yesterday just how dishonest Starmer had been with regards to the Unite demonstration. It wasn’t a ‘far right’ rally, it was just ordinary but pissed off Britons expressing their views.