Rally follows ban of former EDL leader Tommy Robinson from Twitter over ‘hateful conduct’

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Thousands marched through London under the banner of free speech on Sunday after Tommy Robinson, a former leader of the far-right English Defence League, was permanently banned from Twitter.

Protesters flying national flags and holding placards decrying limits to free expression rallied at Whitehall after marching through central London from Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park, a location seen as emblematic of free speech that has been the scene of several recent far-right rallies.



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Robinson called for the demonstration last week in response to Twitter’s decision to ban him for “hateful conduct” after he posted a message saying: “Islam promotes killing people.”

He and several prominent rightwing figures addressed the 2,000-3,000 attendees. Robinson told the crowd: “We couldn’t have done this three years ago, we couldn’t have done this four years ago. We are now mainstream.”

Other speakers included the leader of Ukip, Gerard Batten, the Vice magazine co-founder Gavin McInnes, the YouTube personality Sargon of Akkad, Anne Marie Waters of the political party For Britain and the former Breitbart senior editor Milo Yiannopoulos.



Lines of police with riot vans separated the protesters from several hundred counter-protesters demonstrating against what they saw as a far-right movement.

As the crowds, swelled by support from the Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA), an umbrella group for football ultras, turned from Piccadilly into Whitehall, they chanted Robinson’s name.

Paul Stevenson, 42, from Harrow, said he was marching to “protect freedom of speech”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Democratic Football Lads Alliance and For Britain were some of the supporters of the demonstration. Photograph: Penelope Barritt//REX/Shutterstock

“It’s to protest against all the censorship that’s going on, political correctness, cultural Marxism and attacks on the white, Christian culture, not just in this country but across Europe,” he added.

Numbers dwindled throughout the lengthy Whitehall march, while the atmosphere was unthreatening.



In his rally speech, Robinson said: “The people of this country have been silenced for 20-30 years with the tag of racists. They have managed to silence people so that they are too scared to speak up when they see things that are wrong.

“They now realise that that tag is dead: no one cares anymore with being labelled racists.”

Yiannopoulos told the crowd: “Truth and righteousness are behind you. You are the vanguard, you are the dark nights, the first men and women to proudly stand with your heads above the parapet, caring nothing for the bullets that come your way and I salute you.

“I saw what happened when Nick Griffin went on Question Time, in America when genuine racists [appear on television] ... When those people are exposed to the harsh light of day, I believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

Carl Benjamin, whose alias is Sargon of Akkad, said the protest was against “totalitarianism, identity politics and Islamism, which is really the same thing.”

“Those protesting against them were only in favour of ‘curated speech’,” Benjamin added.

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On the other side of the lines, Freddi Hyde-Thompson, 28, from London, was shocked to find the counter-protesters outnumbered. “It’s really worrying ,” he said. “This cannot come to London and there be more of them than there are of us.”

Hyde-Thompson saw the protesters’ claims of support for free speech as a contradiction. “If their freedom of speech is going to rub out other people’s freedom of speech then they’ve got no point. If they want to ban certain religions, that speaks for itself.”

Among those watching the speakers and videos was Fatima, a black Muslim woman who would not give her full name.

“I’m here for freedom of speech,” she said, adding that she did not feel threatened. “It’s okay, I’m in my element; I don’t really care, this is England. There’s a guy with an infidels shirt right in front or me, I don’t know how he would react to me. This is a bit awkward for all of us.” </s> A large crowd has gathered at Speaker’s Corner, in Hyde Park, London, where Tommy Robinson, a right-wing activist, who was the founder of the political movement English Defence League, has visited to deliver a speech on Freedom of Speech. Robinson has been a vocal citric of Islamist ideology, as well as the EU policy of mass migration. Robinson has been accused of holding extreme views by a portion of the media. </s> Another far-right activist has been refused entry to Britain, following the recent banning of internet personalities Martin Sellner, Lauren Southern and Brittany Pettibone.

Lutz Bachmann, the founder of the far-right Patriotic Europeans against Islamisation of the West ("Pediga") movement, was banned ahead of a mass meeting at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, where the activist Tommy Robinson was due to address a large crowd.

Bachmann founded Pediga in 2014 in protest at plans for refugee centres to open in Dresden. The 45-year-old, who has a number of criminal convictions including drug dealing, theft and assault, stepped down as leader in 2015, following an outcry over a Facebook photo which appeared to show him dressed as Hitler – but was later reinstated.

A Home Office source confirmed he was refused leave to enter and admission respectively at Stansted Airport on 17 March, on policy grounds that his presence in the UK was not conducive to the public good.

He was detained and subsequently removed from the UK the next day – the morning of the event.
Thousands of far-right activists attend a protest in London, United Kingdom amid a recent crackdown on far-right activity on social media. Guest speakers included former English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson, Vice magazine co-founder Gavin McInnes, and UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Gerard Batten.