21.05.2026

More than 4,000 police at a reported £4.2 million cost

More than street numbers

Far more were on the Palestine march than Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom. But, what with Reform UK, it would be a profound mistake to dismiss the far right as just a marginal force, argues Eddie Ford

At the weekend, it was a tale of two demonstrations in London - the annual Nakba Day protest marking the creation of the Zionist state in 1948, and Tommy Robinson’s second Unite the Kingdom rally. The former was primarily organised as usual by Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coalition, Friends of Al Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Muslim Association of Britain and CND, with Stand Up to Racism being an additional bolt-on for the day. Together, they mobilised under the slogan “United against Tommy Robinson and the far right”.

Of course, the event generated big headlines in all the mainstream media. But the statistics were a bit baffling - a war of competing realities. When it came to the Nakba 78 march, according to Socialist Worker, there were 100,000 - apparently humiliating Robinson, who only had around 35,000.¹ Basically, the SWP claimed a “decisive victory” over Robinson. However, when it came to the statistics there was clearly no coordination with the PSC. It talks of some 250,000 on the pro-Palestine march. A strange discrepancy.

Meanwhile, the Met claimed the latter had between 15,000 and 20,000, while there were 60,000 for Unite the Kingdom.² Make of that what you will! But if you want real fantasy figures, the organisers of Unite the Kingdom claimed that “millions” attended - and Tommy Robinson posted on X before the event the Trumpian boast that it would be “the greatest patriotic display the world has ever seen”.³

Yes, it is harder to estimate marches nowadays, since they tend to be fragmented into contingents, as various organisations hold things back by stretching banners across the road, going their own pace, etc. Nevertheless, the Nakba 78 demo took a full hour from starting in South Kensington before the front arrived at the final destination in Pall Mall, with the rear just leaving Exhibition Road at 2pm. True, it was nowhere near the size of last year’s pro-Palestine demonstrations, but it easily outnumbered Tommy Robinson’s chauvinistic orgy.

Either way, the police erected a “sterile zone” in Trafalgar Square to keep the two demonstrations apart, Robinson supporters gathering at Kingsway and making their way to Parliament Square via Trafalgar Square. More than 4,000 members of the Met were deployed to oversee the two events, alongside mounted units, drones and helicopters, while live facial recognition technology was used for the first time - but not on the official march routes, we were told.

Characterisation

However, when it came to the Socialist Worker report, it is the characterisation of people who went to the Unite the Kingdom rally that is the main problem. It paints a picture of drunks, beer bottles, pissing against walls and knuckle-walking bigotry. Oh, and with the slow pace of the march, a little drizzle and news of the numbers at the pro-Palestine demonstration, a mood of profound demoralisation.

Yes, there were loads of people with Union Jack T-shirts and hats, waving the flag, carrying placards with stupid slogans, and all the rest of it. Yet they should not be dismissed as a lumpen mob. There were also families with children, people who felt totally ignored by the mainstream establishment, and some who, politically, were not strongly affiliated to any particular party, but just plain angry with the state of the country. The real point, of course, is that it would be a profound mistake to dismiss such people as if they were unwinnable, beyond reach, forever lost.

Remember, on May 7 Reform won 1,454 council seats - they were defending just two of them. And it took control of 14 councils across the country - nine from Labour and four from the Tories. In all, Reform secured 3.6 million votes - a million more than Labour. It also rose to second place in both Scotland and Wales. Today Reform stands at some 28% in opinion polls, ahead of both the Tories (18.3%) and Labour (18.1%).

Then there are the silly articles in the liberal press comparing the Tommy Robinson march with the National Front of the 1970s. Anyone old enough to have been on counter-demonstrations back then knows that is sheer nonsense. NF meetings, rallies and demos were not counted in the tens of thousands: they were usually only a few hundred, including skinheads looking for trouble. Can you say the same about the people that turned up for Unite the Kingdom last Saturday? Patriotic Alternative, Ukip and Britain First were there - yes, fascist organisations. So too were people high on booze and cocaine. But they were a minority. Hence, we need the right politics to split them - that should always be our approach, if we are Marxists.

Not that we should view Reform members or Reform voters as our natural support base. True, they hate Sir Keir Starmer with a passion. They also hate Muslims, illegal migrants and the left. Strategically, our main task is winning the organised workers’ movement, as well as those with some sort of class consciousness - which by definition goes beyond sectionalism of any kind.

But we do need to go beyond the politics of r-r-revolutionary posturing. Take the SWP - or, rather, the SUtR slogan, ‘Smash fascism!’ If that means the Tommy Robinson demonstration, that is another serious mistake. The plain fact of the matter is, whatever our exact numbers were - even if we did dwarf Unite the Kingdom march - there was, rightly, no attempt to cleave off significant numbers to physically confront the Tommy Robinson protestors: that rules out any comparison with either Lewisham or, for that matter, Cable Street.

Note, in August 1977 some 500 members of the NF attempted to march from New Cross to Lewisham town centre. Many thousands of locals, not least British-Asian youth, rallied to successfully stop them. Cable Street 1936 similarly saw a few hundred members of the British Union of Fascists attempt to march through the Jewish East End of London. With the CPGB taking the lead, around a hundred thousand local residents, including Jewish and Irish migrants, were mobilised to stop them. Of course, most of the fighting was with the police, who were not only outnumbered but forced to back off. So, very different from the left going in for ‘squadism’, or anything of that order.

Tommy Robinson “cut a sad and frustrated figure” when speaking at the Unite the Kingdom rally, according to Socialist Worker, which suggests that “perhaps the line up didn’t quite live up to expectation”, because the “banning of 11 international far-right figures” meant that “another of the slogans for the day, ‘Unite the west’, rang hollow” (May 16).⁴

Fuel the fire

There may be a slither of truth to this. On the other hand, such bans can only but add fuel to the fire. They confirm to the far right that they are subject to persecution, discrimination and a woke culture of intolerance … which includes the left. After all, the implication in Socialist Worker is that it approves of home secretary Shabana Mahmood blocking several “far-right agitators” from entering the country to attend the Unite the Kingdom event. If that is the SWP view, it is a big mistake.

Communists after all should be the consistent champions of democracy and therefore oppose the British state using such powers to restrict free speech and freedom of movement in general - which can just as easily be used against us - if not more so! Open debate and expression of different views is not something to be feared, but welcomed as our weapon. This is a lesson that we on the left should have learnt by now, going back to the 1936 Public Order Act which, amongst other things, banned political uniforms … and which was promptly used against the left.

Former SWP leader John Rees, who now heads both Counterfire and the StWC, stated on the BBC Today programme that the police response should have been that it was “unacceptable” for Tommy Robinson to hold his march on May 16, given the Nakba Day event happened on the same day every year.⁵

Meanwhile, of course, new guidance issued by the Crown Prosecution Service pushed prosecutors to consider whether banners and slogans viewed on social media may amount to offences of ‘stirring up hatred’, and specialist officers were primed to take swift decisions to arrest people for ‘hate speech’ - including chanting “Globalise the intifada” or “Death to the IDF” at the Nakba 78 march. The right to protest might be a “cornerstone of our democracy”, declared Mahmood, but anyone spreading hate or committing acts of violence will face the full force of the law” - including those protesting against genocide.

SW further mentions that there were “appeals” from the stage by Tommy Robinson to “get involved in electoral politics”. He urged his audience to get “ready for the battle of Britain”, as we have an election in 2029 that is “the most important moment in our generation” - hence, register to vote and become an activist or “we are going to lose our country for ever”. Significantly, Robinson said, “we’re a cultural movement” and urged people to join a political party - whether it is Reform, Advance UK, Restore Britain or the Conservatives - he did not care which, as what mattered was to “locally get involved in politics”.

Robinson claimed to have raised more than £225,000 from two US rightwing donors he had met on a recent trip to America (after which there were chants of “USA, USA”) and asked the crowd to personally thank Elon Musk, as “none of this would have happened if it wasn’t for one man”.

At the end rally of the Nakba protest, the only speaker to mention the fight for socialism was Zarah Sultana. She correctly described Andy Burnham as “another establishment politician cut from the same Zionist cloth”. Jeremy Corbyn mainly came out with liberalistic guff about how Reform’s hatred “will not build one council house”, “improve one hospital” or “end somebody’s homeless life on the streets of London”. Weymann Bennett and Samira Ali of the SWP had a turn each - but you would not know their real affiliation, as they were wearing their respective SUtR and Women Against the Far Right hats (the latter having a launch meeting on June 15).

Regrettably, none of the 24 speakers mentioned the Palestine Action prisoners. A shame.