“We must deny the far-right control of our streets”
In the three years I have worked as a caseworker for The Monitoring Group, I have seen the very rapid growth of Reform UK, a far-right party led by the persona of Nigel Farage, writes Rohan Patel.
Unsurprisingly, the “immigration question” is now no longer a marginal debate - it is the dominant story featured on the news. The far-right have become extremely tactical, creating news channels which present biased perspectives, and have utilised social media channels to pump out fake content and let it spread. They have created campaigns such as “Operation Raise the Colours”, which exploits the nuances of flying flags to visibly mark the boundaries between those who believe migration is an issue and those who do not.
When Tommy Robinson, one of the most notorious figures of the far-right and former leader of the English Defence League, announced a protest, many dismissed it as insignificant, expecting only a fringe turnout. Yet it came after months of agitation around asylum seeker hotels and a steady flow of online content fuelling the movement. By the time Robinson staged his “Unite the Kingdom” free speech convention in September he proclaimed it would be the “biggest free speech march of all time.” We arrived at the march around 11:30 am. It was unimaginably packed. The streets were bustling with crowds that looked like they were attending the football; white, mostly men, many of them drinking early in the day. I’ve never witnessed a protest so tightly packed before. It was scary to look towards a sea of just red, white, and blue, with chants of “Keir Starmer’s a wanker”. At least I agreed with that.
We headed towards the Southbank, where we saw crowds draped in England flags eating street food from all over the world, a striking contradiction that has since gone viral in videos online. From there we walked to the Stand Up to Racism protest. Though the gathering felt small, the atmosphere was friendly, with trade unions and left-wing organisations filling the crowd. We marched towards Trafalgar Square. On the way, we encountered huge numbers of Unite the Kingdom protestors lined opposite us. Chants of “fascist scum off our streets” swelled. The rage on their faces was unlike anything I’d witnessed before. These protestors had already broken the terms of their own march, which was supposed to remain on the south side of Whitehall to avoid clashes. That agreement had been made with the Metropolitan Police beforehand, but they had spilled into the wrong area.
Stand Up to Racism hadn’t matched Robinson’s mobilisation, leaving us dangerously outnumbered, and the far-right took full advantage. One screamed the national anthem, inches from the face of a woman of colour. Nearby, a flag-bearer sprayed beer into an anti-racist’s face, while others chanted “Rule Britannia” and waved banners scrawled with slogans. Further on, two men pointed at me and sneered, “That guy with the glasses.” It was unsettling and what shocked me most was how the police let it happen. No buffer, no serious arrests, no consequences. At Notting Hill Carnival, African Caribbean, Asian and other people of colour faced heavy surveillance and facial recognition, yet here crowds fuelled by nationalism were left unchecked.
As the speeches commenced, I turned my head and saw huge crowds of flag-waving protestors pouring in from Trafalgar Square. I’d estimate around 10,000 Unite the Kingdom protestors were attempting to storm the Stand Up to Racism crowd. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. A Stand Up to Racism speaker had to announce over the microphone that we were kettled and had to stay put while police worked out their strategy. This was their “gotcha” moment, their chance to claim they had won control of the streets. We were vastly outnumbered. I could not believe the police allowed it to happen, and yet there has been no outcry about this failure to manage the protests. After an hour or two a speaker switched the mood, blasting protest anthems that had people dancing and chanting in the middle of Whitehall, joy breaking through fear. The crowd joined in with chants of “Fuck the EDL” between songs, laughing and cheering. Eventually after several hours of dispersing the crowds, the police escorted us out towards Green Park.
Cycling home, I passed through the remnants of the protest. Unite the Kingdom’s march was clearly well-resourced, even providing public toilets for their supporters. The scale of funding, organisation and infrastructure behind it was hard to ignore. And while what we saw was the most hostile and violent section of the protest, it was also clear that the far-right had managed to galvanise mass support. Among the aggression and chants were families, groups of friends, and so-called “ordinary” members of the public. That was what worried me most: Robinson and others have found a way to package resentment into something that feels palatable.
Chanting “fascist scum” at a march might release anger, but it doesn’t build a movement. Not everyone drawn in by the far-right is a hardened racist, many are alienated, angry and searching for answers in the wrong place. Our job on the day is to turn up in greater numbers, united, to deny the far-right control of the streets. You can’t reach people in the middle of a drunken mob; those moments belong to organisation, not persuasion.
The longer, harder work requires collective responsibility. It is not enough to turn up at marches and then go home; each of us has to take ownership beyond the streets. That means having difficult conversations with friends and family, debunking the lies with patience. It also means stepping into the community and spaces where these ideas are normalised and challenging them; on estates, in schools, workplaces, pubs, small towns and villages. If we do this, if we stand together on the streets and organise in daily life, we can begin to dismantle their growth and build the kind of solidarity that steadily takes away the ground beneath them