This roundup of claims has been compiled by Full Fact, the UK’s largest fact checking charity working to find, expose and counter the harms of bad information.
‘Unite the Kingdom’ protest numbers
Lots of claims have been circulating on social media about the size of the “Unite the Kingdom” protest in central London last weekend—with some saying that the police estimated three million people attended.
However, this is not what the official estimate from the Metropolitan Police said. It put the attendance at between 110,000 and 150,000.
The three million figure was also shared by the event’s organiser Tommy Robinson (whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon). He posted on X (formerly Twitter) “I’m hearing police estimate 3 million patriots on the streets”, and later criticised “legacy media” outlets for reporting the Metropolitan Police’s estimate. Others claimed that more than a million people were present.
It’s hard to precisely measure crowd sizes at non-ticketed events, and we often see attendance figures at large protests disputed.
This demonstration was clearly large in scale, and reported by some to be the largest “nationalist rally” in recent times.
But the three million figure appears to be a substantial overestimate, based on both the police figures and analysis from the independent crowd size experts Full Fact spoke to.
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said its crowd estimates are based on a number of sources, including officers on the ground, CCTV and helicopter footage. The force said it also uses data based on its experience of previous events to estimate numbers.
The largest political demonstration in British history is thought to have been the “Stop the War” protest which took place in London in February 2003. This event, which aimed to deter the UK from joining the war against Iraq, had an estimated attendance of between one and two million people according to its organisers, with police estimating a crowd of around 750,000.
Labour’s ‘Hillsborough Law’ pledge
The ‘Hillsborough Law’, which places a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities, was formally introduced to Parliament this week.
Full Fact has been following progress on this proposed legislation as part of our Government Tracker, a major ongoing project tracking Labour’s progress in delivering dozens of key pledges. We’re currently monitoring 79 pledges.
The proposed law is named for the Hillsborough football stadium disaster on April 15 1989, which resulted in the deaths of 97 people. Since then, campaigners have called for a law to prevent public authorities from avoiding accountability in the wake of tragedies.
A Hillsborough Law was first introduced to Parliament by then-Labour MP Andy Burnham in March 2017 as the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill, but it did not progress before the general election later that year.
Labour’s 2024 election manifesto pledged that its new legislation would place a legal “duty of candour” on public servants and authorities, meaning they would be required to act proactively and truthfully to assist official investigations, inquests and inquiries. Separate regulations already place a duty of candour on health and social care settings.
While no deadline was set out in Labour’s manifesto, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer later said at the Labour Party conference last September that the legislation would be introduced to Parliament before the 36th anniversary of the tragedy, on April 15 2025.
This commitment was not met, but the legislation was finally introduced to Parliament as the Public Office (Accountability) Bill this week, and it is likely to be known as the Hillsborough Law once passed. As a result, Full Fact’s tracker is now rating the related manifesto pledge as “appears on track”.
If passed, the legislation will:
– Place a legal duty of candour on public authorities and officials and some private bodies carrying out public functions, with a criminal offence of intentionally or recklessly failing to comply with that duty punishable with a maximum prison sentence of two years.
– Create two new criminal offences to replace the common law offence of misconduct in public office.
– Give families of victims of disasters or state-related deaths non-means tested legal aid at inquests where public authorities are interested persons, while placing a duty on public authorities at inquests and inquiries to “only engage legal representation in a necessary and proportionate way”.
In announcing the Bill, Sir Keir said it would ensure “that the state can never hide from the people it is supposed to serve”, while also citing the infected blood scandal, the sub-postmasters’ Horizon scandal, and the Grenfell Tower fire.
In a statement, Hillsborough Law Now campaigners said the legislation would “deliver the change that those failed by the state in the cruellest of ways have long demanded and even longer deserved”.
However, they also called for the Bill not to be watered down, and said that only its “full implementation” would achieve the aims set out by the campaign.
