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. </s> (Reuters) - Britain has banned three foreign far-right activists from landing on its soil in the last three days, a British security official said.

In a Facebook posting on Saturday, Generation Identity, a British white supremacist group, said Austrian activist Martin Sellner and his American girlfriend Brittany Pettibone, a YouTube commentator and author, had been detained by the British government.

The British official said that when they landed at Luton Airport, north of London, on Friday, border police refused to allow Sellner and Pettibone to enter Britain and that they were detained and then deported on Sunday.

The official, who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said the couple had been banned from entering by Britain’s Home Office on the grounds that their “presence in the UK was not conducive to the public good”.

On Monday, British border police stationed in the French port of Calais also denied entry to Lauren Southern, a Canadian right-wing activist. After being detained, Southern tweeted that British authorities had told her she was “officially banned from UK for ‘racism’”.

The official confirmed that British border authorities had denied Southern permission to enter Britain on the same grounds as the other two activists.

Southern was planning to meet Sellner and Pettibone in Britain, according to the conservative news website Breitbart. Breitbart also said Sellner had been planning to make a speech in London’s Hyde Park, but that papers served on him by the British authorities alleged the speech was likely to incite “tensions between local communities”.

Breitbart said Pettibone was blocked from entering Britain not only in relation to Sellner’s planned speech but also because she planned to interview Tommy Robinson, former leader of the far-right English Defence League.

Experts who monitor Britain’s far right movements said the government had recently stepped up efforts to keep out ultra-right-wing foreign activists.

Among other Americans who have been banned from Britain are anti-Muslim campaigners Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, and Mark Weber, who heads a California group known for Holocaust denial. </s> Lutz Bachmann said on his Facebook page that he was not allowed to enter the UK because he carried a copy of a speech by far-right Austrian activist Martin Sellner, who himself had been denied entry last week.

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Both the dpa news agency and daily Bild say the UK's Home Office had confirmed to them that Bachmann had been detained at London's Stansted Airport and then deported back to Germany as his presence in the UK was deemed "not conducive to the public good," without going into more detail.

Bachmann had planned to go to a far-right rally at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, where former English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson read out Sellner's speech.

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On Facebook, Bachmann says the fact that he was to attend the event was the sole reason for him being denied entry, as he had recently attended other events in London, Manchester and Birmingham – all in the UK.

Sellner, of the white supremacist Generation Identity group, and his girlfriend Brittany Pettibone, a YouTube commentator, were detained at London's Luton Airport on March 12 and refused entry into the UK.

Bachmann, whose PEGIDA movement organizes regular anti-foreigner and anti-Islam marches through German cities, has been previously been convicted of inciting racial hatred in Germany.

DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here. </s> The government has banned Canadian right-wing activist and journalist Lauren Southern from Britain, being held at Calais just days after Austrian activist Martin Sellner and author Brittany Pettibone were refused entry at Heathrow.

Southern was on a bus travelling to Britain on Sunday night when she was “singled out” by border police, who seized her passport and took her in for questioning, Breitbart London reporter Chris Tomlinson and sources close to the conservative writer said on Twitter.

Released from detention by British authorities in the French port town Monday morning, Southern told followers on Twitter that she was “doing fine” but had been “officially banned from UK for ‘racism’”.

A self-described “gonzo journalist” who recently returned from filming a documentary covering brutal attacks on white farmers, Southern had been planning to meet with Identitarian leader Martin Sellner and his American girlfriend Brittany Pettibone in the UK.

But as Breitbart London previously reported, the pair were detained and refused entry to Britain on Friday at Heathrow airport, ahead of a planned talk on free speech at Hyde Park in London.

The pair were then placed in detention, where they waited to be deported along with other foreign nationals after being served Home Office papers explaining Generation Identity “is viewed in the UK as a right wing organisation”, and alleging that Sellner’s planned speech was “likely to insight (sic) tensions between local communities”.

Pettibone, a YouTube political commentator, was told she was blocked from entering Britain not only in relation to her boyfriend’s speech but also because of her plans to interview former English Defence League leader turned citizen journalist Tommy Robinson.

Posting a picture of Home Office papers handed to Pettibone which describe him as “a far right leader whose materials and speeches incite racial hatred”, the Luton-born activist slammed the government as “liars”.

On social media, commenters questioned whether blocking conservative is now official UK policy, as Southern, Pettibone, and Sellner joined a host of right-wingers barred entry to Britain including Geert Wilders, who leads the Netherlands’ second largest political party, and radio show host Michael Savage. </s> As most Britons spent their bank holidays bathing in the summer sunshine, it was easy to miss the fact that thousands of protesters marched on Whitehall to “protect freedom of speech”. Far from being an innocent defence of Enlightenment values, the protest seemed more a Trojan horse for the ideas of the far right to insert themselves into the political mainstream. The demonstration was a response to former EDL leader Tommy Robinson’s permanent ban from Twitter, and featured figures such as Anne Marie Waters, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Gerard Batten of Ukip.

I’m not sure that British mainstream politics has quite taken the growing presence of the far right across Europe and the US seriously enough, or indeed the fact that British far-right and socially conservative groups are overtly and deliberately adopting the tactics of their allies across the pond. Claiming freedom of speech as a value is something the American far right has been doing for years (aided and abetted by liberal dupes, naturally); Britain has also recently had an escalation in protests outside abortion clinics. “They are starting to resemble more and more the tactics that you’d see in the United States: graphic imagery, more aggressive approaches to people,” said John Hansen Brevetti, clinical operations manager at a clinic in Ealing, west London.

It’s important to understand that these protests aren’t simply individual opportunistic acts, but part of a growing narrative embraced by social conservatives and the far right that the nation has been corrupted by elites, who are simultaneously destroying the economy and damaging society with their decadent liberal values. These elites, argue these protesters, are censoring ordinary people from expressing reasonable opinions, and forcing women to abort their children when other options might be available. Or as Tommy Robinson put it when he addressed the rally: “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.”

Robinson is tapping into that hoary old Nixonian trope, “the silent majority”. Central to these culture wars, then, is who “the majority” is and which groups can claim to speak for it. No one can claim to have found the perfect oppositional response to the culture wars, but in light of Robinson’s argument, it’s probably a bad idea for the opposition to set itself up as a group that represents only minorities. Instead, perhaps the aim should be to redefine who the majority are, through collective struggle, solidarity and a movement that makes itself welcoming to, and represented by, all demographics in society.

Whatever the response to the weekend’s rally is, it can’t come soon enough. Nigel Farage’s triumphalist meetings with Marine Le Pen, the far-right AfD in Germany, and Donald Trump should tell us all that this is a concerted international nationalist project that correctly sees itself as insurgent. And preceding every far-right victory is a political mainstream that didn’t take it seriously enough. Let’s not allow that to happen again. </s> Supporters of the ex-English Defence League leader Robinson scuffled with counter-protesters during a ‘free speech’ rally held at Hyde Park’s iconic Speakers’ Corner. Scores of police were on hand to attempt to keep the peace.

Before Robinson’s address, Speakers’ Corner veteran HeikoKhoo was harangued and abused by the right-winger’s supporters. One man ripped off Khoo’s hat, while others shouted obscenities and surrounded the left-wing activist.

The supporters had rallied to hear Robinson read out a ‘banned speech’ by Generation Identity’s Martin Sellner, who was denied entry to the UK. Robinson delivered the speech to thousands who braved the cold weather, gathering in the snow at Speakers’ Corner, a landmark of free speech in London. Marx, Lenin, and George Orwell all gave speeches at the iconic Hyde Park location.

A handful of Muslim counter-protesters confronted Robinson and his group, pushing back against police and the protesters. Scuffles broke out and it is understood that police made a handful of arrests.

A live stream posted from Robinson’s YouTube channel showed large crowds of supporters and counter-protesters, while police can be seen around the far-right speaker, who made headlines last week for punching a migrant in the face in Rome. Supporters could be heard chanting “free speech,” making Robinson’s voice impossible to be heard clearly for those viewing at home.

Muslim protesters responded with cries of "Allahu Akbar!" with both groups trying to drown the other out. According to one attendee, Robinson vowed he would be back at Speakers’ Corner next week to challenge the Muslim speakers who are there, among others, on a weekly basis.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! </s> LONDON — Three far-right figures say they have been deported from Britain after being detained when trying to enter the country.

Austrian Martin Sellner of the Generation Identity group, American commentator Brittany Pettibone and Canadian activist and YouTube personality Lauren Southern tweeted Monday that they were denied entry into Britain.

Britain’s Home Office said in a statement that the border force “has the power to refuse entry to an individual if it is considered that his or her presence in the U.K. is not conducive to the public good.”

Sellner said in a video posted on Twitter that he and Pettibone were detained for three days and deported.

He said on the video that both of them were handcuffed. He said he had planned to give a speech at “Speakers’ Corner” in London’s Hyde Park. He said “that was my crime.”

Pettibone said that she was denied entry because she had plans to interview far-right leader Tommy Robinson.

She said from Austria that “It felt like they were saying, ‘you’re right-wing, that’s not allowed.”‘

Southern, who has more than 400,000 subscribers on YouTube, tweeted that she was “officially banned from UK for ‘racism”‘ but was doing fine.

She said “all the cool people are being banned anyway.”
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.