There was no shortage of this Saturday, in the center of London, no component of the intimidating script with which the British extreme right always manifests itself. An individual with a shaved head and crosses tattooed on his biceps leaned in the corner, both arms gripping the thick golden chain that held a pit bull dog, a mass of muscles and fangs. The flags of England floated, with a white background and with the red cross of Saint George, the favorite of the extreme right. Clueless Iranians in support of their English brothers and nostalgic for the shaReza Palhevi. More than a dozen Israeli flags. But above all tattoos, beer cans, defiant looks and signs proclaiming Jesus Christ as the only king.
“Tommy, Tommy, Tommy Robinson,” shouted the thousands gathered this Saturday in Parliament Square, next to the Palace of Westminster, in the heart of London. They chanted the name of the only one absent. The English far-right leader, 41 years oldwhose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was summoned by the Metropolitan Police to Folkestone barracks on Friday. With several cases still pending against him – such as the insults against a Syrian refugee or his refusal to allow access to his mobile phone under the Anti-Terrorism Law – the authorities have rigorously applied the option of precautionary measures before his appearance in court. scheduled next Monday: Robinson will remain in prison throughout the weekend, to avoid his presence at the demonstration in central London.
On one side of Whitehall Avenue, where the political power of the United Kingdom is concentrated – the Prime Minister’s residence, on the side of Downing Street, and different ministries on both sidewalks – the far-right demonstration, with a stage in which a guitarist wrapped in Union Jack and two female singers with a tonality that could be improved, tried to encourage the protesters with an irregular version of the Land of Hope and Glory.
The memory of the riots at the end of July, when far-right violence took over the streets of several cities British, has led the London authorities and the Metropolitan Police to take extreme precautions this Saturday. In the streets adjacent to Parliament, police vans and mounted police have maintained surveillance since early in the morning.
Furthermore, around those gathered, dozens of police officers, with regular batons, but without helmets, monitored everything that was happening. Meters and meters of portable metal fences cut off access to the area, but above all they separated the far-right act from the anti-fascist and anti-racism act that was taking place at the other end of Whitehall. Its organizers had previously called to “take to the streets” and carry out “an anti-fascist demonstration as massive as possible.”
The numbers of the anti-fascist demonstration have surpassed those of Robinson’s ultra followers. A huge poster with the legend “Let’s stop the extreme right. Let’s stand up to racism”, has toured the streets of London. “Let us oppose Tommy Robinson”, or “United against fascism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism”, read the banners of a rally in which the flags of Palestine also predominated.
