On Saturday, a huge crowd turned out for a “Unite the Kingdom” rally in London. It was led by Tommy Robinson, and Elon Musk appeared via video link. The crowd also honored Charlie Kirk. Official estimates put the crowd between 100,000 and 150,000. I am no expert on crowd size, but it looked much bigger than that. Some partisans claimed it was as many as three million.
English and United Kingdom flags were everywhere. The demonstrators were protesting the British government’s immigration policies, which threaten to render England extinct, and assaults on freedom of speech, exemplified by recent arrests of conservatives for tweets. In the U.K., if someone rapes a 12-year-old and someone else does an angry tweet about it, the tweeter may be punished more harshly than the rapist.
St. George’s Crosses and Union Jacks were everywhere:
Note the Israeli flag in this one:
This aerial video, from the left-wing Guardian, gives the best sense of the magnitude of the demonstration. I don’t think I have seen anything like it. There is no way this is only 100,000 or 150,000 people:
Despite its enormous size, Unite the Kingdom was mostly ignored by the British press. Both the London Times and the Telegraph barely mentioned it, and both highlighted Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s reaction rather than the protest itself. The Times headline is “Keir Starmer: We won’t allow flag to become symbol of violence,” while the Telegraph’s is a virtually identical “Starmer tells Tommy Robinson he ‘will not surrender’ British flag to violence.”
What violence are they talking about? Out of that immense crowd, a tiny number scuffled with police and a number of policemen reported injuries. A few were reported to be serious.
This is what Starmer said:
But we will not stand for assaults on police officers doing their job or for people feeling intimidated on our streets because of their background or the colour of their skin. Britain is a nation proudly built on tolerance, diversity and respect. Our flag represents our diverse country and we will never surrender it to those that use it as a symbol of violence, fear and division.
Of course, the protesters weren’t using the flag as a “symbol of violence, fear and division.” They were using it as a symbol of patriotism and freedom. Liberals always accuse conservatives of promoting “division” when they express ideas that are not liberal, especially when those ideas enjoy broad support.
As always, the protesters were ritually denounced as “far right” by the establishment press. I think they represent the majority view of Britons on both immigration and free speech; one wonders how many millions of people you need to represent before you stop being “far” anything.
Elon Musk’s contribution was incendiary:
Musk, 54, owner of the social media platform X, claimed: “There’s this genuine risk of rape and murder and the destruction of the country and the dissolution of the entire way of life. If you weren’t under a massive attack then people should go about their business and live their lives, but unfortunately if the fight comes to you, you don’t have a choice.”
He added: “Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die, that’s the truth, I think.”
I think Musk had Charlie Kirk in mind when he made that last statement. Peter Kyle, a secretary in Starmer’s government, called Musk’s contribution “slightly incomprehensible comments that were totally inappropriate.” I thought what Musk said was perfectly comprehensible. Keir Starmer and his ministers just don’t want to hear it.
The British press can ignore the Unite the Kingdom movement, but Starmer’s government ignores it at its peril.
