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Toby Young
Toby Young is the editor-in-chief of the Daily Sceptic, the general secretary of the Free Speech Union and an associate editor of the Spectator, where he has written a weekly column for more than 20 years.
As of 4.30pm Saturday, only 31 people had been arrested at Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally and the rival, pro-Palestinian Nakba Day rally – both of which took place in Central London. But the Met hasn’t yet broken down how many were arrested at each protest, promising to do that later. The police appear to have done a good job at keeping the two rival groups apart, with my social media feed indicating the pro-Pals were much more intent on provoking violent clashes. At one point, a group of far-left protestors started chanting, “Shoot him in the neck like Charlie Kirk,” about Robinson.
Judging from reports in the mainstream media, the turnout at the UTK rally was lower than it was last year – an estimated 50,000, according to the Telegraph, as opposed to last year’s 100,000, but this figure will undoubtedly be contested by the rally’s organisers. The organisers of the Nakba Day demo claimed 250,000 attendees, a number I think we can comfortably divide by 10. The Times estimates the number participating in both rallies at 80,000.
Attempts by Labour politicians and others to depict the UTK rally as ‘racist’ (David Lammy said that the organisers of the march “are spreading hatred and division”) were belied by the number of black and brown participants. GB News’s Nana Akua went to the rally to look for ‘far right’ protestors and struggled to find any. In fact, the people on the other protest were more guilty of “spreading hatred and division”, with the usual antisemitic bile being spewed on every street corner, often by protestors displaying the Hamas red triangle. Lots of people in my social media feed have been complaining about the failure of the Met to arrest anyone for chanting ‘Globalise the Intifada’, ‘Intifada revolution’ and similar incitements to violence against Jews, although I suspect several of the 31 arrests will have been of pro-Palestinian protestors for stirring up racial hatred.
Robinson addressed the UTK attendees from a platform in Trafalgar Square, sounding quite ecumenical.
Are you ready for the battle of Britain? In 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.
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 forever.
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.
There was no appearance from Elon Musk this year warning of a coming civil war, although Robinson did invite the crowd to thank him. “None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for one man – thank you Elon, on behalf of Great Britain,” he said.
All told, then, a protest that could be described as “largely peaceful” without irony. To put the 31 arrests in context, 528 people were arrested at last year’s Notting Hill carnival, four people were stabbed and 55 police officers were assaulted.
This article was originally published by the Daily Sceptic.
