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.”
