London rally: Why Starmer should not ignore Tommy Robinson’s flagged message

It is a sad commentary on the current state of the mainstream electronic media in the UK that live coverage of the massive Unite the Kingdom rally in London last weekend did not inform viewers about the size of the gathering led by Tommy Robinson. Indeed, the impression given was that the so-called “Far Right” rally was the same size as the counter-protest by Stand Up Against Racism and that the mounted Metropolitan Police had a hard time keeping the two equal groups apart.

Only later did it emerge—mainly via non-mainstream sources but eventually corroborated by TV and print—that the Robinson rally had upwards of 150,000 people and the anti-racism protesters numbered barely 5,000. Now why would the media want to skim over that significant difference while covering the day’s events? Did the huge difference in numbers point uncomfortably to the popularity of Robinson’s movement, which is sought to be portrayed as merely “fringe”?

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One of the people most interested in the turnout was the Reform Party leader Nigel Farage, who has not been a fan of Robinson, going by media reports. Because the people who had come to London from all over the UK were not all racists and bigots as the blanket term “far-Right demonstration” implies. Many, if not most of them were just ordinary British people who wanted to be heard—on migration, rising prices and taxes, safety and the national health service.

By far the biggest concern is, of course, migration. Both Farage and Robinson have pointed to the number of “fighting age men” among the migrants, whose significance will not be lost on target voters. That Robinson managed to gather so many people for his Unite the Kingdom rally should set off alarm bells in Conservative and Reform circles. The two mainstream parties cannot afford to alienate those who deem Robinson to be more attuned to their sentiments.

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This ostrich-like attitude over the rising anti-migrant sentiment was reflected in reports that the police were taken by surprise by the turnout, and some described the rally as “too big to fit into Whitehall”, which was the designated area of the march. How could the police be unaware of the potential size of the rally when Britain has been riven by protests for weeks over the housing of migrants at hotels and Robinson’s clarion call has been getting huge responses everywhere?

The appearance of Elon Musk at the rally via video link was also a nasty surprise for the authorities, even though some ministers tried weakly to spin it as clinching evidence that “freedom of speech” was alive and well in the UK. Musk going as far as to call for a “revolutionary change of government” may not be quite what the ministers had in mind; that happens to Bangladesh and Nepal, not the UK!

The Unite the Kingdom ranks presented a sea of fluttering Union and St George’s flags, to which British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer asserted, “Britain is a nation proudly built on tolerance, diversity and respect. Our flag represents our diverse country, and we will never surrender it to those that use it as a symbol of violence, fear and division.” But the total absence of that symbol of Britain’s common heritage among the Stand Up to Racism demonstrators is significant.

One minister, Peter Kyle also testily told the media soon after the event ended with a few incidents of scuffles between the police and rallyists that “I do want to make the point that the flag belongs to all of us…That flag means a lot of different things to a lot of people, but it is about essential British and English values and principles.” But that really begs the question of why the other bunch did not carry flags, to show allegiance to those same values and principles.

More suspiciously, while the Unite the Kingdom agenda was directly attributed to Robinson, the “anti-racism” counter was presented without any name or face. Statements calling the Unite rally “an urgent wake-up call for us all” and asking “campaigners, trade unionists, politicians, faith groups and others” to come together to “stop the far right on the streets and at the ballot box” were simply attributed to Stand Up to Racism. Which “faith groups” are being appealed to?

That becomes clear when the roots of the Stand Up to Racism are examined. The organisation is inextricably linked to “Unite Against Fascism” and shares many office bearers including Talha Ahmad of the Muslim Council of Britain, an umbrella body of Islamic entities, including mosques. Given that the 2024 elections saw The Muslim Vote appear as not only an online group to unite “the faith” but also got five of its preferred candidates to win, the agenda is obvious.

There is said to be no love lost between Farage and Robinson (real name Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon) because of the latter’s openly anti-Islamic stance. But the support he has begun to garner in the UK indicates that his support base is widening beyond the supposedly bigoted segments of Britain. There is a genuine concern about the influx of people who are not in step with the ethos of Britain, which bodes ill for social assimilation. No mainstream party should ignore it.

More so as a distinct element of Christian nationalism is also creeping into such protests, which is more common in the US than UK. Amid the flags in Robinson’s rally, there were wooden crucifixes, for instance, chants of “Christ is King” and a mass recital of the Lord’s Prayer. Interestingly, even the left-leaning BBC reported last week that there has been a sharp rise in the UK of Catholicism—a more hardline school of Christianity than the current form of Anglicanism.

In light of the strongly anti-migrant, nationalist political winds blowing across Europe and the US, there is every reason for Britain not to ignore the importance of the signals being sent out by Robinson too. It has far less wiggle room for an acceptable solution to the people’s concerns than other countries with similar issues. And it has far less time too. What had been dubbed a summer of discontent in the UK shows no signs of cooling down even though winter is coming.

The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.