The 30th demonstration for Palestine took place in central London on 6th September. Around 200,000 marched. While there has been a constant stream of criticism of the usually very large marches, arrests, often contested, have been few and violence and attacks on the police have been non-existent.
Enter career criminal Stephen Yaxley Lennon who promoted a ‘unite the kingdom’ march and rally in Whitehall on 13th September. The police estimate that over 100,000 attended, a worringly large number (there was a substantial Stand Up To Racism counter protest).
The police handling of the far right to fascist march seems to have been a shambles given the well known pattern of such affairs to descend into drunken violence. That of course is exactly what happened as far right thugs attacked the police.
The police graphic of the situation at 5pm is at the top of the post.
Ben Jamal one of the organisers of the Palestinian marches criticised the police’s “inability or unwillingness” to get them out of the blockage. He said: “It is a deeply depressing spectacle when there are many people marching in support of racist narratives. For 22 months I’ve been leading pro-Palestine marches which have been demonised by the police. But today, they seemed unable or unwilling to stop fascists effectively imprisoning fellow citizens for three to four hours.
“There need to be extremely important questions asked to Mark Rowley and the home secretary.”
Guardian 13th September 2025
I agree. It would be nice to see our government extracting its head from its backside and taking reality on board rather than trying to appease business and little 🏴 every which way.