MORE than 110,000 people protesting against immigration have marched through the United Kingdom’s capital, London, in one of the country’s biggest right-wing demonstrations, with some protesters clashing with the police and wounding at least 26 officers.
The violence at the “Unite the Kingdom” march on Saturday came as police tried to keep the right-wing protesters apart from a group of some 5,000 rival demonstrators gathered at White Hall in central London.
Aljazeera reported that London’s Metropolitan Police said the march, organised by anti-immigrant activist Tommy Robinson, drew an estimated 110,000 to 150,000 people, far surpassing expectations.
The police force said its officers faced “unacceptable violence” from some of the protesters and that four of them sustained serious injuries, among them broken teeth, a possible broken nose, a concussion, a prolapsed disc and a head injury.
“There is no doubt that many came to exercise their lawful right to protest, but there were many who came intent on violence,” Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist said in a statement.
“They confronted officers, engaging in physical and verbal abuse and making a determined effort to breach cordons in place to keep everyone safe.”
At least 25 people were arrested over the violence, Twist said, describing the detentions as “just the start”.
“We are identifying those who were involved in the disorder, and they can expect to face robust police action in the coming days and weeks,” he added.
Secretary of State for the Home Department Shabana Mahmood also condemned “those who have attacked and injured police officers”, and insisted that “anyone taking part in criminal activity will face the full force of the law”.
Cultural revolution
Robinson’s latest “Unite the Kingdom” march comes at the tail end of a highly charged summer in the UK that featured several protests staged outside hotels housing asylum seekers in England, following the arrest of an Ethiopian man who was later convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in a London suburb.
Demonstrators carried the Union flag of the UK and the red and white St George’s Cross of England, while others brought those of the United States and Israel. Some wore the “Make America Great Again”, or MAGA, hats of US President Donald Trump.
They chanted slogans critical of Prime Minister Keir Starmer and carried placards, with some saying, “Send them home”.
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, and who is known for his anti-immigrant and anti-Islam views, called the march “a show of patriotic unity like nothing seen before”.
“Today is the spark of a cultural revolution in Great Britain. This is our moment,” the 42-year-old activist told his supporters.
He billed the march as a demonstration for free speech, British heritage and culture, and pumped up the crowd with claims that migrants now had more rights in court than the “British public, the people that built this nation”.
Other speakers at Robinson’s event included US billionaire Elon Musk, who joined via video-link, French far-right politician Eric Zemmour, and Petr Bystron of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
“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,” Musk said, calling for a change of government in the UK.
Zemmour reiterated the far-right, white nationalist so-called “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which claims that white Europeans are being deliberately supplanted by non-white immigrants.
“We are both subject to the same process of the great replacement of our European people by peoples coming from the south and of Muslim culture. You and we are being colonised by our former colonies,” he said.
Largest far-right demonstration ever
Several speakers also paid tribute to slain US conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was remembered in a moment of silence, followed by a bagpiper playing Amazing Grace.
Several people who attended the rally said they were motivated by concerns over immigration.
“We want our country back; we want our free speech back on track,” said Sandra Mitchell. “They need to stop illegal migration into this country,” she said.
Another woman was jubilant about the turnout.
“I can’t believe it,” Emily Rose told the AFP news agency, taking in the crowds after travelling from Glasgow in Scotland and donning a dress emblazoned with the Union Jack flag.
“I knew I needed to be here. We need to be heard,” she said.
Experts said the rally marked one of the UK’s biggest right-wing demonstrations of modern times.
Joe Mulhall, director of research for the antiracism charity Hope Not Hate, told the BBC it was “probably… the largest far-right demonstration ever in Britain”.
Georgios Samaras, assistant public policy professor at King’s College London, said it showed that “multiple factions within the far-right” as well as newcomers had converged in London.
Counterprotest
At the counterprotest, organised by the “Stand Up to Racism” campaign group and attended by left-wing lawmakers Zarah Sultana and Diane Abbott, the crowd held signs saying, “Refugees welcome” and “Smash the far right”, and shouted “Stand up, fight back!”.
Abbott accused Robinson and his allies of spreading “nonsense” and “dangerous” lies that asylum seekers were a threat.
“We need to be in solidarity with asylum seekers, and we need to show that we are united,” she told Sky News.
Ben Hetchin, a teacher who attended the protest, said he was worried about the “hate that is dividing us”. He told Reuters that “the more that we welcome people, the stronger we are as a country”.
The “Stand Up to Racism” campaign group posted on X that its protesters had also been attacked by Robinson’s followers. “Are these the ‘concerned ordinary people’ we’ve heard so much about? Or are they far right thugs,” said one post.
The police said they deployed 1,600 officers to keep the rival rallies apart.
Ed Davey, leader of the UK’s centrist Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, took to social media to criticise Musk and the violent scenes that happened.
“These far-right thugs do not speak for Britain,” he added.
The march comes as the far-right, anti-immigrant Reform UK party establishes itself as a significant political force, with recent polls saying it would be the UK’s largest political party if a general election were held now.
Reform UK has kept its distance from Robinson, who has several criminal convictions for assault and mortgage fraud.
Robinson, who founded the nationalist and anti-Islam English Defence League (EDL), had planned a “Unite the Kingdom” rally last October, but could not attend it after being jailed for contempt of court for violating a 2021 High Court order barring him from repeating libellous allegations against a Syrian refugee, who successfully sued him.
While the crowd attending the “Unite the Kingdom” was large, it fell far short of one of the biggest pro-Palestinian marches, which drew an estimated 300,000 people in November 2023.
The number of arrests at Saturday’s rally also contrasted sharply with the 890 people detained at the previous week’s Palestine Action protest, where protesters holding up placards calling for the UK’s ban on the group to be lifted, and for a stop to genocide in Gaza, had demonstrated peacefully. - September 14, 2025
