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Far-right
London rally sees record crowds and violent clashes with police
More than
110,000 people join Tommy Robinson-organised protest featuring racist
conspiracy theories and hate speech
Robyn
Vinter, Sammy Gecsoyler, Helen Pidd and Aneesa Ahmed
Sat 13
Sep 2025 23.37 BST
More than
110,000 people have taken part in a far-right street protest organised by the
activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, in what is thought to
be the largest nationalist event in decades.
Marchers
travelled to London by train and coach for a demonstration, which was billed as
a “festival of free speech”, but by its conclusion had amplified racist
conspiracy theories and anti-Muslim hate speech across Whitehall.
The scale
of the protest vastly outgrew police estimates resulting in tense and at times
violent clashes between protesters and police.
The
Metropolitan police said at least 25 people were arrested and 26 officers were
injured, including four who were seriously hurt. Marchers were arrested for a
range of offences, including affray, violent disorder, assaults and criminal
damage.
The
crowds were addressed by Elon Musk, who dialled in via video link and spoke of
“the rapidly increasing erosion of Britain”, before calling for the dissolution
of the UK parliament.
The
French far-right politician Éric Zemmour was also invited to speak. He told
protesters they were subject to “the great replacement of our European people
by peoples coming from the south and of Muslim culture”, adding that “you and
we are being colonised by our former colonies”.
The huge
turnout meant attenders could not be contained within Whitehall, the endpoint
of the march, where the rally was being held. The swelling numbers resulted in
clashes with police with the Met saying officers “faced unacceptable violence”
after being “assaulted with kicks and punches. Bottles, flares and other
projectiles were thrown.”
About
5,000 counter-protesters from trade unions and anti-fascist groups marched in a
separate route in central London.
Large
crowds displaying union jack and St George flags had been drifting into central
London since the early morning in anticipation of the rally.
Shortly
before 1pm, people began marching across Westminster Bridge. The crowd, which
was largely white, sang “Keir Starmer’s a wanker” to the tune of Seven Nation
Army and broke into chants of “Tommy”, “Whose street? Our street” and
“England”. Some also held signs in support of Tommy Robinson.
On the
approach to Whitehall, stalls sold books co-authored by Robinson titled
“Manifesto: Free Speech, Real Democracy, Peaceful Disobedience” and “Mohammed’s
Koran: Why Muslims Kill for Islam”.
One
elderly woman in a wheelchair, who travelled to attend from Merseyside with her
son, held a sign with Charlie Kirk’s face on it with the words: “God bless,
never forget”.
“I’m
British through and through; this is our capital,” she said. “I had to be here
today for our country.”
Her son
added: “I feel our country is being inundated with the ideology which is trying
to suppress and suppress us and I just want our country back.”
The pair
said they were “followers of Tommy Robinson and what he stands for”, adding the
“establishment just want him out”. They denied it was a far-right event, saying
their attendance was a “patriotic visit”.
The
mother said when she was a child in Liverpool, she “lived amongst neighbours
from Africa, Pakistan; we were all one. It’s not about race, this is the
government just overcrowding our country.”
Carol
took the coach from south Wales to attend the rally. She said she was there
because “we need to unite the kingdom basically, it just seems to be so
divided. We just need to come together, all of us.” Elaborating on this, she
said: “It seems to be one half can say ‘I do what I want’, and the other half
have to watch everything they do.”
She held
a sign that read “Change my mind: RIP Charlie”, referencing Kirk’s
open-invitation college campus debates. She said she “probably picked up on him
about a year ago” after he came up on her social media feed.
When
asked what she thought of Robinson’s involvement in the rally, she said: “When
I first heard of him in 2017, the consensus and opinion around him was that
he’s a bad un.” Since then, “having looked more into what he does”, she said:
“He’s doing really well. He’s changed a lot of minds.”
Whitehall
quickly became so full that it was closed to marchers before the first speakers
even took to the stage, leaving thousands stuck on Westminster Bridge and in
Parliament Square.
On
Whitehall, crammed in front of three big screens, the crowds swelled to what
felt like dangerous levels. People stood on bus stops and portable toilets to
get a better view of the stage.
One man
waved a sign saying: “Why are white people despised when our tax money pays for
everything?” Another had a placard that said: “Call centres: speak English.”
The rally
began with music. Members of the Destiny Church in New Zealand performed a
traditional haka dance for the protesters, which was followed by a song with
the lyrics “Making the west look like the Middle East”. They then displayed the
flags of the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State and Palestine to boos from the
crowd, before tearing each of them in half to loud cheers.
Robinson
then took to the stage and said “Britain has finally awoken” and that “this is
never going away”. He claimed that British courts ruled that the rights of
undocumented migrants supersede those of the “local community”, referring to
Epping council’s failed case against the Home Office.
“They
told the world that Somalians, Afghanis, Pakistanis, all of them, their rights
supersede yours – the British public, the people that built this nation.”
He then
played a video that included images of convicted members of a grooming gang
followed by a video of a white woman crying.
Elon
Musk, speaking by video link, told the crowd: “I think there’s something
beautiful about being British and what I see happening here is a destruction of
Britain, initially a slow erosion but rapidly increasing erosion of Britain
with massive uncontrolled migration.”
“A
failure by the government to protect innocent people including children who are
getting gang-raped. It’s unreal the government has failed in its duty to
protect its citizens, which is a fundamental duty of government.”
Zemmour,
who came in fourth place in the first round of the 2022 French presidential
election, told the crowd in French, which was translated for the audience, that
the “freedom of our peoples is in danger”.
At the
anti-fascist march, the MP Diane Abbott told a crowd that Tommy Robinson’s
allies “are some of the most anti-women forces in society”.
She said:
“They are trying to drag women into their project, they are claiming that they
are protecting women, but they are some of the most anti-women forces in
society – they oppose equal pay, they oppose action against discrimination,
they belittle sexual harassment as banter.
“So we
are here to stand together, we are here to fight, and we are here in the
certainty that we will defeat the fascists.”
A Met
assistant commissioner, Matt Twist, said police faced a “wholly unacceptable”
level of violence. He said an investigation had begun and the force was working
to identify suspects involved in disorder.
He added:
“There is no doubt that many came to exercise their lawful right to protest,
but there were many who came intent on violence. They confronted officers,
engaging in physical and verbal abuse and making a determined effort to breach
cordons in place to keep everyone safe.
“The
violence they faced was wholly unacceptable. Twenty-six officers were injured,
including four seriously – among them broken teeth, a possible broken nose, a
concussion, a prolapsed disc and a head injury.”
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