Saturday\u2019s Unite the Kingdom demonstration was the largest far-right mobilisation in British history.<\/p>\n
Estimated at between 100,000 and 150,000, participation in London exceeded the numbers usually mobilised by anti-Muslim demagogue Tommy Robinson and extended beyond his usual support base of football hooligans and fascist thugs. This core periphery was boosted by the presence of workers and their families, including from among the most deprived layers, who have swallowed the far-right\u2019s message blaming social distress and the collapse of essential services on migration.<\/p>\n
Tommy Robinson speaks during the Unite the Kingdom march and rally near Westminster, London, September 13, 2025 [AP Photo\/Joanna Chan]<\/p>\n
This scapegoating has only been made possible because the guttural barks of the fascists have been deliberately and systematically amplified by the mass media and the entire political establishment, with the central role played by Keir Starmer\u2019s Labour government. <\/p>\n
Since taking office last June, Starmer has pursued a relentless and escalating assault on workers living standards and vital social services, while whipping up militarism and nationalism to justify its role in the NATO war against Russia, support for genocide in Gaza and its insistence that austerity must be stepped up because the welfare state can no longer be afforded.<\/p>\n
The more this facilitates the emergence of far-right tendencies including Nigel Farage\u2019s Reform UK, now the most popular party in Britain, the more loudly the Labour government beats the nationalist drum.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s demo came after a summer dominated by right-wing protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers and a fascist orchestrated \u201cRaise the Colours\u201d campaign hanging the Saint George Cross flag of England and Union Jack flag on lamp posts, government buildings and monuments. Labour responded by pledging a clampdown on asylum applications by family members of asylum seekers; boasted of the 45,000 asylum seekers it had deported\u2019 promised to replace temporary hotel accommodation with de facto concentration camps in disused warehouses and military facilities; and proclaimed its support for flying the flag.<\/p>\n
This is why the main slogans chanted on Saturday were \u201cKeir Starmer is a wanker\u201d, directed against the government, and \u201cStop the Boats!\u201d, while Robinson could also boast of how \u201cPoliticians all of a sudden are finding courage and they\u2019re parroting the things that we have said for 15 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robinson referred specifically to the embrace of his anti-migrant policies. But he could have added to this Starmer\u2019s defence of Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza and mass repression of its opponents. Support for mass murder by the Zionist state and the display of Israeli flags was a major factor in a march characterised by vicious hostility to Muslims.<\/p>\n
Support for the anti-asylum and flag protests by Britain\u2019s ruling elite has two related purposes. Labour was brought to power charged with carrying out an agenda of war and austerity which a crisis-ridden Conservative government was incapable of effectively continuing. But Starmer has been repeatedly condemned for shying away from some of the worst cuts and for not ramping up military spending quickly enough. Fuelling right-wing opposition serves to both stiffen Labour\u2019s resolve and create the basis for a political shift to the far-right if and when this becomes necessary.<\/p>\n
The deliberate boosting of the far-right not only mirrors processes taking place in France, Italy and elsewhere in Europe and internationally. It is also being organised internationally. Among the speakers at Saturday\u2019s rally were far-right French politician Eric Zemmour, leader of the Danish People\u2019s Party Morten Messerschmidt and Petr Bystron of the Alternative for Germany (AfD). <\/p>\n
But by far the most significant presence was Elon Musk, who once again gave his support to Robinson, called for the Starmer government to be brought down and urged a violent confrontation with the left.<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s presence demonstrates that behind the pretensions of Robinson and his ilk, with its invocations of \u201cpeople power\u201d and promises to prioritise \u201cBritish workers\u201d stands a movement financed and representing the interests of the financial oligarchy. Just as he and other super-rich oligarchs supported Trump\u2019s fascistic MAGA movement, the world\u2019s second richest man is now lending his wealth and the social media he controls to the promotion of Britain\u2019s far-right just as he has already done with the AfD in Germany.<\/p>\n
Speaking by video link with Robinson, Musk declared that \u201cwhat I see happening is a destruction of Britain\u2026 with massive uncontrolled migration, a failure by the government to protect innocent people, including children who are getting gang raped.\u201d He called for an immediate \u201cchange in government\u201d through the \u201cdissolution of parliament\u201d, a \u201crevolutionary government change\u201d that would create a future where \u201cthere\u2019s deregulation, a massive reduction in bureaucracy\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
The role of the American far-right was evident everywhere on Saturday. Following the murder of pro-Trump influencer Charlie Kirk, Robinson pledged to make his rally a memorial to the fascist provocateur. Sky News acknowledged the overt Christian nationalism on display, with people carrying wooden crosses, a chant of \u201cChrist is king\u201d from the stage, and a public recital of the Lord\u2019s Prayer.<\/p>\n
Musk made clear the central aim of Kirk\u2019s beatification is to whip up a pogromist atmosphere against the left, as a precondition for a massive assault on the working class. Railing against \u201cthe violence there is on the left, with our friend Charlie Kirk getting murdered in cold blood this week,\u201d he declared, \u201cThe left is the party of murder and celebrating murder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last summer, during a wave of violent anti-immigration riots in Britain, Musk said that \u201ccivil war is inevitable\u201d. On Saturday he called for a civil war to be waged, telling the rally, \u201cIf this continues, that violence is going to come to you, you will have no choice. You\u2019re in a fundamental situation here, where whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die.\u201d<\/p>\n
Responsibility for the danger posed to the working class by the growth of the far-right cannot simply be laid at the door of those that openly serve the ruling class like Starmer. Fascist ideologues like Robinson and more \u201crespectable\u201d figures like Farage are only able to exploit social distress and the widespread hatred felt towards the Starmer government because widespread left-wing sentiment in the working class has been systematically suppressed\u2014by those claiming to be on the \u201cleft\u201d.<\/p>\n