Thousands Gather for Punishingly Long Tommy Robinson Demonstration

Saturday saw a host of well-known far-right figures address an estimated crowd of 6000 in London. 

Stephen Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson) has struggled to attract significant numbers to his demonstrations in recent years. That changed on Saturday when his event in Westminster attracted the largest numbers to any far-right demonstration since 2018.

Organised as a vehicle to screen his new documentary, Lawfare, about two-tier policing and Britain’s supposed slide into a totalitarian state, protesters began to gather in the pubs around Victoria Station from 10am onwards.

The event drew significant numbers from the football hooligan world, with firms travelling to London from across the country in numbers not seen since the Football Lads Alliance demonstrations back in 2018.

After several hours of idling at Victoria Station the march set off late and made its way towards Westminster. Lennon walked behind a banner reading “This is London not Londonistan,” a reminder of the Islamophobic intentions that underpin all of his activism. This was backed up by racist chants of “Allah Allah, You’re a C***” by the some of the crowd. Pictures also show a banner being unfurled by supporters of the fascist group Patriotic Alternative in support of their convicted activist Sam Melia.

The livestream of the event, which at times attracted an audience of hundreds of thousands, showed that numerous old EDL stalwarts had returned to the streets including the convicted violent robber Guramit Singh and former London EDL leader Roger Firth. Also in the crowd was the British race science YouTuber Edward Dutton. 

Once the crowd reached Parliament Square they settled in for over five hours of speeches and film screenings. Not learning from his previous events, Lennon played the whole 90 minutes of his new documentary to an increasingly restless audience. The meandering film covered everything from supposed two-tier policing, Covid lockdowns, hate speech legislation, Black Lives Matter, Transgender rights, the threat of Islam and pro-Palestine demonstrations.

This was compounded by a staggering long list of far-right speakers who addressed a rapidly thinning crowd, included Laurence Fox, former UKIP leader Gerard Batten, Carl Benjamin of Lotus Eaters, James Harvey (AKA Students Against Tyranny), Lewis Brackpool and Sydney Jones as well as video messages from Katie Hopkins. At one point Lennon unveiled a banner in support of fellow convict Donald Trump.

The most extreme speech of the day came via a video message from Calvin Robinson who said,

“the Islamic cult is a death cult, founded by a warmongering paedophile. […] People are worshipping this warmongering paedophile, probably under demonic influence […] The Islamic faith is centred on taking over, the whole premise is to invade a land and turn it into a Caliphate for Islam, It is to get Sharia everywhere now […] Let’s rip that out, rip out wokeness, rip out Islam and put Christianity back at the forefront.”

What this Islamophobic rant has to do with supposed two-tier policing is unclear but it was yet more evidence that it is anti-Muslim prejudice that underpins the growing coalition of far-right spokespeople that Lennon is seeking to unite.

By the time the speeches had been concluded the crowd had dwindled down to the hundreds with many of the protestors drifting into the pubs around Westminster. Unsurprisingly, some attendees voiced their frustration after the event with one person writing in a football hooligan whatsapp group: “That march was a shower of shit we done nothing but watch poxy videos.”

Despite this, Lennon and his fellow organisers have hailed the event as a resounding success and are clearly excited by the numbers in attendance.  

A New Movement?

In the run up to the event Lennon outlined his vision for a “leaderless movement” centered around a set of common principles, naming freedom of speech, Islamic immigration and ‘stopping the sexualisation of children’ as examples.

Lennon claimed that he has already spoken with fellow far-right influencers including Laurence Fox and Carl Benjamin (AKA Sargon of Akkad) who both attended the demonstration.

On Saturday evening Lennon, Benjamin, Fox and Mahyar Tousi sat down to discuss their plans going forward. The floated new movement has yet to be launched and planning appears to be ongoing. One option discussed was the holding of a conference to hammer out the core principles they all agree on.

While Lennon seems to believe that finding a set of core principles all involved agree on will be simple, that might not be the case. While certain issues like Islamophobia and transphobia will likely be widely accepted, there are others – such as rejecting vaccines and calling for an end to the UK’s support for Ukraine –  that may cause division. Another fault line could be how central Christianity appears to be to many speakers, a topic that already raised discussion in Saturday’s livestream. 

Lennon has already called the next demonstration for 27 July, the plan being to march to Scotland Yard and demand the resignation of Mark Rowley, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

One of the challenges faced by the EDL was that endless protests is a tactic of diminishing returns. Activists soon get bored and numbers begin to dwindle. It seems Lennon may have failed to learn this lesson. Though that may take some time and large numbers are to be expected in London again for the next event.

While Saturday’s demonstration and the prospect of a coalition of influential far-right content creators is extremely worrying, they still face serious hurdles to it being a success. But the fact remains that Saturday was the largest far-right gathering in some years and there appears to be energy and enthusiasm behind Lennon once again.