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Met police preparing for large scale far-right and pro-Palestine protests in London
Met
police preparing for large scale far-right and pro-Palestine protests in London
Officers
said to be granted extra powers as marches through capital set for same day as
FA Cup final
Vikram
Dodd
Fri 15
May 2026 18.10 BST
British
police are preparing to mount one of their largest scale operations in recent
memory with more than 100,000 protesters set to march through the streets of
London on the same day as the FA Cup final in Wembley.
The
Guardian understands that officers in vast swathes of central London will be
granted extra powers in order to police the far-right Unite the Kingdom march
organised by Stephen Yaxley Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson.
At the
same time, as smaller counter march organised by pro-Palestine protesters will
take place, with the two events to be separated by police.
The scale
of the last UTK march in September stunned both organisers and police with more
than 150,000 joining a crowd that occupied Parliament Square in Westminster.
The prime
minister, Keir Starmer, has said the rise of the far right represented “a fight
for the soul of this country”, and the march comes after Nigel Farage’s Reform
UK won the biggest share of the vote at last week’s English council elections.
Britain’s
largest Muslim group has warned people to avoid central London this weekend
amid fears the second event could reach a similar size.
The
Metropolitan police has 4,000 officers on duty, backed up by armoured Sandcat
vehicles and drones. Most will be deployed to police the UTK march, and keeping
away counter protesters.
The
situation is complicated by the cup final between Manchester City and Chelsea,
which kicks off at 3pm. The Met this week said football hooligans have in the
past supported Robinson, and social media videos features calls for them to
join Saturday’s protest.
The Unite
the Kingdom march last year, which was backed by money from the US, featured
stages where hate speech amplified over Westminster by a string of extremist
participants who denounced Islam and promoted Christian nationalism. Saturday’s
event will see the far right thronging streets that house Britain’s most
powerful institutions in Whitehall.
The
Guardian understands police will try to seek prosecutions not just against
speakers at both marches, but organisers for conspiracy, if comments from the
stage are judged to be inciting hatred.
The
pro-Palestinian rally numbers will be boosted by anti-racists countering the
much larger far-right protest, with numbers expected to be between 15,000 and
40,000.
Police
believe prosecutors are now more likely to agree charges for what they consider
to be antisemitic chants or slogans, with “globalise the intifada” leading to
charges against three people. Previously prosecutors had declined to prosecute
for the slogan.
Planned
to speak at the far-right rally, according to its advertising, is the mother of
a woman killed by an asylum seeker, and the American conspiracy theorist Glenn
Beck, a former anchor on rightwing US channel Fox News, who left amid claims he
was too extreme for the Rupert Murdoch-owned network.
Robinson
went to the US in February where in Washington more than a dozen law makers met
him, and he was also hosted by the US state department. Previously he had been
banned from entering the US because of criminal convictions.
The
promotion material features an AI-generated video that denounces Muslims and
ends with a sequence where Lennon is the hero on stage adored by a crowd of
tens of thousands and contains the line: “Tommy Robinson’s vision, this is our
destiny.”
While the
video for UTK may be AI fantasy, Nick Lowles of Hope Not Hate warned the
reality is that Robinson is popular among a significant minority of Britons.
Polling
shows Lennon is known by more than 80% of respondents, and while the number of
those disliking him is high, 17% like him: “Lennon can put more people on the
streets than any other person. He is a phenomenon,”, said Lowles.
In a
video on Friday, Robinson appealed to officers policing the march not to rush
to draw their batons: “We’re not coming for a big battle … the people that are
there tomorrow, are the people at the school gates with you.”
In
another video he urged supporters to stay calm if provoked and to “win by
smiling at them”, adding: “This is not an event to bring your anger.”
The
Muslim Council of Britain warned the march puts Muslims “at risk of being
subjected to increased violence and hatred”. It said the last event “featured
speakers who openly incited hatred, chanted anti-Muslim slogans and unashamedly
encouraged violence and civil disobedience on Britain’s streets”.
·
Dr Wajid Akhter, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain said:
“Nobody should be forced to walk Britain’s streets in fear of their safety. But
when irresponsible political rhetoric, toxic social media algorithms and double
standards in policing continue to act as enabling factors for open racism, and
violence is promoted on Britain’s streets, the downward spiral will
accelerate.”
Jerome H. Powell has officially stepped down as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, passing leadership to Kevin M. Warsh following a high-stakes transition marked by public political battles over central bank independence. Warsh, who openly campaigned on a platform of "regime change," takes the helm at a time when the Trump administration has repeatedly challenged the central bank’s traditional insulation from executive branch pressure.
As Powell
Steps Down, the Fed Confronts ‘Regime Change’
Jerome H.
Powell has officially stepped down as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, passing
leadership to Kevin M. Warsh following a high-stakes transition marked by public
political battles over central bank independence. Warsh, who openly campaigned
on a platform of "regime change," takes the helm at a time when the
Trump administration has repeatedly challenged the central bank’s traditional
insulation from executive branch pressure.
The Core
of the "Regime Change"
- Dismantling Status Quo
Practices:
Warsh aims to aggressively overhaul policy norms. He views the current Fed
framework as broken.
- Ending Forward Guidance: Warsh intends to abandon the
practice of signaling future interest rate pathways. He believes this
muddles market reactions.
- Scrapping Core PCE Targets: The incoming chair plans to
move away from the Core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index. He
has dismissed the metric as a "rough swag" of price behavior.
- Narrowing the Fed Mandate: Warsh aims to strip out
non-monetary focuses. He has heavily criticized Powell's inclusions of
climate change and diversity initiatives.
Powell’s
Defensive Maneuver
- Staying on the Board: Though his term as chair
concluded on May 15, 2026, Powell will exercise his legal right to remain
as a regular Fed Governor. His governor term runs until 2028.
- Blocking a Trump Majority: By remaining on the 7-member
Board of Governors, Powell denies President Trump an immediate opening to
appoint another loyalist. This blocks the administration from quickly
reaching a "tipping point" majority to dismantle institutional
norms.
- Pledging a Low Profile: Powell stated he will not
interfere with interest-rate deliberations. He intends to maintain a
quiet, supportive role under the new chair.
Broad
Economic and Institutional Fallout
- Credibility Pressures: Warsh argues the Fed lost
public credibility by misjudging the post-pandemic inflation surge. He
plans to focus on directly suppressing long-term interest rates.
- Independence Questions: Congressional Democrats have
raised strict concerns over Warsh’s independence. During his confirmation,
he notably declined to condemn the administration's legal attacks on other
Fed officials.
- Boardroom Friction: If Warsh moves to withdraw the
Fed's legal defenses of its own staff, it will create unprecedented
friction. Technocrats on the board and regional bank presidents may form a
blocking coalition against aggressive executive overreaches.
As Powell Steps Down, the Fed Confronts ‘Regime Change’
As Powell
Steps Down, the Fed Confronts ‘Regime Change’
Jerome H.
Powell is passing the chair’s baton to Kevin M. Warsh at the Federal Reserve,
an institution that President Trump’s pick says needs an overhaul.
Colby
Smith
By Colby
Smith
Colby
Smith covers the Federal Reserve.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/15/us/politics/jerome-powell-kevin-warsh-federal-reserve.html
May 15,
2026, 5:02 a.m. ET
Kevin M.
Warsh’s campaign to become the next chair of the Federal Reserve centered on
the premise that the central bank had lost its way.
The Fed
had made a major policy blunder in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic that
helped to induce the worst inflation shock in four decades. It had intervened
in financial markets to such a degree that it distorted the fundamental way in
which assets across the world were priced. And, Mr. Warsh argued, the Fed had
jeopardized its own political independence by engaging in issues outside of its
congressional mandate.
Mr.
Warsh’s solution was to call for “regime change” across an institution that had
become a magnet for attacks from President Trump over its refusal to slash
interest rates.
The pitch
worked for Mr. Trump. It also swayed Senate Republicans, who confirmed Mr.
Warsh for the top job just days before Jerome H. Powell’s term comes to an end
on Friday. Mr. Powell has chosen to remain as one of seven members of the Board
of Governors, a decision he made to ward off further encroachments on the Fed.
An
assessment of Mr. Powell’s eight-year tenure as chair points to a far more
constructive legacy than the one Mr. Warsh portrays, however.
Mr.
Powell is remembered as an effective leader who navigated the Fed through an
extraordinary series of shocks that put it through grueling tests. He proved
nimble when the economic backdrop shifted, managing to forge consensus among
the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee to rapidly adjust rates in
both directions.
Mr.
Powell’s plain-spoken communication style made him popular across Wall Street,
while his frequent trips to Capitol Hill won over lawmakers. He met more than
twice as often with senators as his predecessors did, according to an analysis
of his calendar.
Mr.
Powell leveraged that support this year when he took on Mr. Trump directly to
defend the Fed’s independence. That fight has now come to define Mr. Powell’s
legacy.
Yet the
central bank did make consequential missteps under his watch, ones that left it
vulnerable to the criticism voiced by Mr. Warsh.
Mr. Warsh
will need to amass his own backers if he is to enact his agenda, a goal that
already risks being overshadowed by a worsening inflation problem because of
the war with Iran. Resurgent prices have turned officials off rate cuts,
potentially putting the new chair in Mr. Trump’s cross hairs if he does not
deliver relief.
“Warsh is
going to have to repair damage in terms of relations with the board staff and
other members of the Federal Open Market Committee, because I doubt they think
the Fed is as broken as he implied in his commentary,” said William Dudley, who
served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 2009 to 2018.
“Do I
think the Fed is broken? No, but I do think there are a number of things that
the Fed could do better.”
An
Inflation ‘Blemish’
Mr.
Powell’s legacy might look very different had it not been for the relentless
pressure campaign waged by the president, which escalated this year into a
criminal investigation.
At the
onset of the pandemic, Mr. Powell unleashed the full firepower of the central
bank to rescue the global economy and financial system from the brink of
collapse. The Fed slashed rates to zero in 2020 and then embarked on a series
of interventions, including an unlimited government bond-buying program and
historic purchases of corporate bonds and municipal debt. Mr. Powell also took
the unusual step of explicitly encouraging lawmakers to turn on the spigots.
Congress eventually greenlighted roughly $5 trillion in federal aid.
The
economy quickly rebounded. But it was followed by a painful inflation shock,
one that became a “blemish” on the Fed, said Charles Evans, who ran the Chicago
Fed for 16 years until 2023.
The Fed
initially misdiagnosed the extent of the price pressures that had started to
build as strong demand fueled by fiscal stimulus collided with constrained
supply. The Fed then made blunders throughout 2021 that further delayed it from
taking action to quell inflation.
Making
matters worse, a year earlier Mr. Powell had unveiled a novel approach to
policymaking, one that seemed geared toward addressing the opposite problem
from the one the Fed was about to confront. That approach was to temporarily
tolerate periods of higher inflation to make up for past stretches when it was
too low and to focus on “broad and inclusive” employment.
“It was
fighting the last war,” said Kristin Forbes, a former Bank of England official
now at M.I.T. “It wasn’t thinking about how the world was changing and the
bigger role of global supply shocks.”
Policymakers
dispute that the framework held them back from addressing the inflation spike,
but the optics were far from ideal. Last year, Mr. Powell scrapped it.
The Fed
was primarily hobbled by overly prescriptive so-called forward guidance for
raising rates. That, coupled with a promise to first unwind a bond-buying
program that many later conceded was excessive, added yet another delay.
Once the
Fed began to raise rates in March 2022, Mr. Powell earned plaudits for how
aggressively it eventually moved as new risks emerged. Weeks before the Fed’s
first increase, Russia invaded Ukraine, sending energy prices soaring. Through
July 2023, the Fed raised rates 11 times to a range of 5.25 percent to 5.5
percent, the highest level since 2001.
The scope
and scale of the rate increases sent a strong message. So did a powerful speech
Mr. Powell gave at the Fed’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., that
August. Those remarks had been hastily rewritten in the preceding week, when it
became clear to Mr. Powell that he needed something that would make an
impression. In just over eight minutes, he delivered his version of a mic drop,
affirming the Fed’s commitment to taming inflation even if it brought “pain.”
Inflation
was not the only issue Mr. Powell grappled with at the time. Multiple
policymakers had stepped down after an ethics scandal involving financial
transactions executed when the Fed was providing support throughout 2020. Mr.
Powell tightened the rules, but the episode left lasting damage. Last August,
another governor resigned over her family’s trading activity.
Mr.
Powell also had to manage a regional banking crisis that many blamed on the
Fed’s own failure in supervising lenders under its purview. The Fed stepped in
to stem the panic in 2023.
Despite
these missteps, Mr. Powell retained good will across Wall Street and
Washington, chiefly because he was pulling off a rare feat: bringing inflation
down without causing a recession.
By
September 2024, inflation was within spitting distance of the Fed’s 2 percent
target, while the unemployment rate remained low by historical standards,
around 4 percent. Successive shocks have thwarted Mr. Powell from declaring
victory.
“It’s
been five years since we’ve had inflation at target,” said Michael Strain, an
economist at the American Enterprise Institute. “That’s a problem for the Fed’s
credibility.”
For Mr.
Warsh, the blame lies squarely with the Fed.
Had it
developed better models for forecasting inflation, been more circumspect about
its market interventions and relied less on broadcasting its next policy moves,
the central bank would have been better equipped to manage the shocks over the
past eight years, he has argued. The Fed also would have been better off had it
not engaged in “mission creep,” delving into topics such as climate change.
To change
all of that, Mr. Warsh wants the Fed to rethink its understanding of what
drives inflation and how best to measure it. He has proposed that the Fed
reduce its portfolio of government bonds and mortgage-backed securities and
that there be closer coordination with the Treasury Department on the balance
sheet. Mr. Warsh has also said Fed officials should speak less in public.
Many
inside and outside the central bank bristle at Mr. Warsh’s use of “regime
change.” They counter that the central bank was never distracted by fringe
issues, noting, for example, that Mr. Powell established three years ago that
the central bank would not be a “climate policymaker.”
Some also
suggest the administration’s broadsides against the Fed are costlier than any
of the central bank’s missteps.
“The real
damage being done is not because of the Fed’s errors,” said Loretta Mester,
president of the Cleveland Fed for a decade ending in 2024. “It’s the fact that
the Fed is under this vitriolic, consistent attack, and that’s undermining
trust in the institution.”
But
aspects of Mr. Warsh’s ideas have resonated.
Discussions
about how to shrink the balance sheet are already underway. Others are thinking
through how to better structure future bond-buying programs. Nellie Liang, who
served as a Treasury official and is now at the Brookings Institution, said
there was a “legitimate” need to draw distinctions between interventions aimed
at market functioning and those related to supporting the economy.
Even Mr.
Powell has conceded that there is work to do on communications, although he has
not suggested that there needs to be a drastic overhaul.
First
Test
As chair,
Mr. Warsh will decide which changes to prioritize, but he will need buy-in from
his new colleagues to enact them.
Many
decisions, including those related to bank regulation, are made by the
governors in Washington. The F.O.M.C. — composed of the governors, the New York
Fed president and a rotating set of four presidents from the regional banks —
votes on rates and other policies.
This
setup creates a “push and pull” dynamic that serves as “a check and balance in
and of itself,” said Esther George, who served as president of the Kansas City
Fed. The outcome has often been a compromise that gives no one exactly what he
or she wants.
“Warsh
has all of the professional tools to be an excellent Fed chair, but he can’t
jump to the moon,” said Randal Quarles, a former vice chair for supervision at
the central bank. “You just can’t change the basic fact that you’ve got people
on the committee who strongly disagree. That’s a feature, not a bug.”
Mr.
Warsh’s first major test will come in June when he runs his inaugural policy
meeting. There is scant support for rate cuts, and some policymakers have
already suggested that the Fed should signal an openness to raising rates. That
leaves Mr. Warsh with a stark choice: Anger the president or undermine his own
credibility.
“Warsh
wants the history books to reflect that he was a great chair, and that means
he’s going to be very intent on not squandering his ability to shape the Fed,
which would happen if he were perceived as advocating for things the data just
don’t justify,” Mr. Quarles said.
Colby
Smith covers the Federal Reserve and the U.S. economy for The Times.
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