‘Prepare for battle of Britain’: Tommy Robinson tells tens of thousands at London rally
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "‘Prepare for battle of Britain’: Tommy Robinson tells tens of thousands at London rally")
Tommy Robinson told crowds gathered in Parliament Square that the rally was a turning point for Britain. Photograph: (AFP)
Police patrolled the streets of London as tens of thousands of protesters descended on the UK capital on Saturday for two rival demonstrations. Organisers claimed that millions had attended “unite the kingdom” march, but police estimated the number to be far lower, at about 60,000.
The far-right activist Tommy Robinson on Saturday called for the “battle of Britain” and urged his tens of thousands of supporters at the rally in London on Saturday to prepare for it. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, drew tens of thousands of supporters onto central London streets for the second year running in the rally marked by Islamophobic and ethnonationalist hate speech and flyers.
Robinson, who gained prominence as the founder of the anti-Islam English Defence League, told crowds gathered in Parliament Square that the rally was “a turning point for Britain”.
He exhorted his supporters to move beyond street protest and “fighting” and become involved in local politics before the next general election.
“Are you ready for the battle of Britain? 2029 we have an election. We’re not asking anyone to go out and fight, but this is the most important moment in our generation,” Robinson said.
“If we don’t send a message in our next election, if you don’t register to vote, if you don’t get involved, if you don’t become activists, we are going to lose our country for ever” he said.
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“We have to get political, we have to get involved. I’m not going to tell you which political party you need to join. We’re a cultural movement. I’m going to tell you that you have to join a political party. I don’t care if it’s Reform, if it’s Advance, or it’s Restore, or it’s the Conservative party. We have to locally get involved in politics.”
Organisers claimed that millions had attended his “unite the kingdom” march, but police estimated the number of demonstrators to be far lower, at about 60,000. Last September’s march was attended by 150,000 people.
Police patrolled the streets of London as tens of thousands of protesters descended on the UK capital on Saturday for two rival demonstrations.
The campaign group Hope Not Hate said that the march appeared to have attracted fewer demonstrators than last year, but the scale of Robinson’s movement is still “deeply worrying”.
“Today’s numbers still dwarf anything ever managed by the English Defence League and hundreds of thousands more watched the livestream online,” it added.
Around 4,000 police officers, armoured vehicles, dogs, drones and helicopters were deployed throughout the afternoon as a separate pro-Palestinian demonstration was held in Waterloo.
Many protesters marched to Parliament Square carrying wooden crosses and chanting “Christ is king” as they waited for the march to begin. Others wore red “Make England Great Again” hats.
