by Ralph Keller
The far right hit the streets of central London with a 110,000-strong contingent on Saturday, 13 September 2025, under the slogan “unite the kingdom”. The slogan was not a reference to Brexit, which created a customs border through the Irish Sea, leaving Northern Ireland politically connected to the UK but economically connected to the EU. Instead, the slogan is an appeal to overcome the divisions within UK society.
Protesters at the “Unite the Kingdom” rally holding a picture of Charles Robinson. Credit: The Guardian
But what are the divisions about—in the twisted minds of the far right? One protester said “We just need to come together, all of us. It seems to be one half can say ‘I do what I want’, and the other half have to watch everything they do.” This statement is an expression of the far right’s “play the victim” game, when it does not like the decisions made in Westminster on immigration and the economy. But this game forgets that Brexit intensified the tensions within society—more immigrants arrived by boat instead of the promise that migration would go down, and the UK’s economy didn’t become the Brexiteers’ promised land of milk and honey.
What we saw on Saturday was the far right at its finest, playing the victim card as they always do. They cry, again and again, that “we don’t have free speech”, it is “all the immigrants that engage in violent crime”, “our culture is being replaced”. MHI has called out that xenophobic conspiracy theory, here and also here.
Such views have permeated society, and not just UK society, to such an extent that seemingly moderate people subscribe to that far-right drivel. One mother at the rally said that she grew up in Liverpool “amongst neighbours from Africa, Pakistan; we were all alone. It’s not about race, this is the government just overcrowding our country”. Not about race? Well, a greater degree of denial is probably not possible. Or was she being delusional? Exactly how will that mother and her children be better off if the far right takes Downing Street?
But let’s look at the claim that migrants are the ones engaging in violent crime. Yes, there have been incidents across Europe where migrants stab people, or shoot bystanders, or drive vans into crowds. Those acts are indefensible—as are the acts of violence by the far right! Just take the week of violence in cities across the UK in July 2024, when self-organised thuggery, triggered by a lie about the identity of the man who stabbed three children, was on the rampage. This self-organised violence by the far right reveals everything about who they are. They are the opposite of the victims they claim to be. That they perpetrated a violent criminal offence is plain for all to see.
And what about their cries of being oppressed because there is, allegedly, no freedom of speech? Well, let’s see. J D Vance cried about it at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year. But I didn’t see him get arrested. Nor did I see Farage get arrested for openly admiring Putin. What I do see is the far right not liking criticism, designating that criticism “hate speech” and hence trying to kill democracy. Trump is doing it, Pam Bondi is doing it, Karoline Leavitt is doing it. And they act on it by unlawfully disappearing non-white people, and by threatening to unleash lawsuits that have corporate America bend the knee. It is the far right that buries free speech before our very eyes!
And if their narrative no longer works, as was the case with white Christian shooter Tyler Robinson, suspected of killing far-right “messiah” Charles Kirk, they change the narrative: Robinson is trans, is left, is whatever. How despicable.
The last time we had such a barrage of far-right rhetoric, we had a world war with 50 million dead, and with parts of Asia and almost all of Europe in ruins. I refuse to unite with the far right. I refuse to engage in scapegoating. I instead uphold free speech, not hate speech. The actions of the far right say more about them than about people who uphold freedom and democracy. Let’s defend them; it’s not too late.
Be the first to comment