Tens of thousands took to the streets of London on Saturday for Tommy Robinson’s “Unite the Kingdom” rally against political censorship and mass migration.
Robinson, who rallied tens of thousands last month in Parliament Square for a “patriotic” demonstration, once again drew large crowds, with aerial pictures of Trafalgar Square on Saturday showing a sea of people waving British, English, Israeli, and even Donald Trump flags.
The anti-grooming gang activist told the crowd: “To fight is in our DNA, its in every single one of you, its in your children. The British are known throughout history as fighters, the sooner we remember it, the sooner we realise every one of us have it, more and more of us need to stand up to them.”
“Freedom of speech has never been free, our forefathers died and bled for freedom of speech. Every single suffering you can imagine, people have sacrificed for freedom of speech, solitary confinement, torture, and death. Freedom of speech is worth fighting for, its worth dying for. Death, prison… we will never submit to your lies.”
Robinson, a frequent target of the judicial system in Britain, is due in court next week on contempt of court charges stemming from his 2021 libel case surrounding the Almondbury Community School incident. During the rally, Robinson streamed his documentary Silenced, which he claims undercuts the charges made against him.
“They think they are putting me on trial. I just put you on trial to the world,” he said. “If they want to send me to jail, the world will know I told the truth.”
The future belongs to us 🇬🇧 ❤️ #UnitingTheKingdom pic.twitter.com/cy4M6Kw966
— Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) July 27, 2024
Actor-turned-activist and Reclaim Party leader Laurence Fox also addressed the crowd, saying: “We are a family, a community, we are the people that stand against those who wish to suppress free speech, we stand against those that want to experiment on our children, and we stand against those who try to dismantle everything about our society, which our fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers, fought for.”
“This is our home, we have nowhere else left to go, so defend your home with every single ounce of your might, take back your country and Unite the Kingdom, God Bless the King.”
In a speech, host of the Lotus Eaters podcast, Carl Benjamin, said: “I feel that Britain is an occupied country at this point, I feel that the British people are being deeply exploited, and I feel that this has to change, because if it doesn’t, what does the future look like for us?”
Benjamin argued that the “intrinsically liberal” British political establishment fundamentally rejects the notion that Britain belongs to the British people, because they don’t actually recognise them as a group.
“They will have to say, England belongs to nobody, or England belongs to anybody. And thus, in one sentence, they have dispossessed you of a thousand years of ancestral inheritance. They have taken away from you, the most precious thing that you own. And they have declared that not only is it not yours, its for anyone else.
“This is a project of colonialism. To say that England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland belong to foreign peoples but not to their own native peoples… You are the underclass they seek to create.”
An absolutely colossal turnout for the United the Kingdom rally. The crowd goes around the stage, it's impossible to see in one place. pic.twitter.com/JEI8EZ0mPa
— Carl Benjamin (@Sargon_of_Akkad) July 27, 2024
Speaking to Breitbart London, Benjamin added: “The movement to restore the dignity of the British people in their own land is clearly growing. Last time there were 30,000 people before parliament, this time upwards of 50,000 at Nelson’s column. Something big is happening in this country, people no longer want to be an exploited second class, and they are mobilising.”
Another consistent theme of the rally was disappointment at Nigel Farage for refusing to attend the rally, with many attendees purporting to have voted for his Reform UK populist party. Mr Farage has long distanced himself from Robinson, having quit his UKIP party in 2018 after Robinson was admitted as a member.
Ironically, a leftist counter demonstration saw activists with a banner reading: “Stop Nigel Farage”.
The counter demo was organised by the Stand Up To Racism activist collective in conjunction with the Stop the War Coalition, the Peace & Justice Project, and Unite Against Fascism. It was also backed by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and other trade unions, the Daily Mail reported.
The much smaller counter demo saw former socialist Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn give a speech. Participants were seen carrying banners reading: “No to Tommy Robinson, no to fascism,” and “Smash fascism and racism.” The Metropolitan Police said that two men were arrested after a participant in the Stand Up To Racism rally was allegedly assaulted.