Down but not out: Robinson dealt major blow in London humiliation

Victory over Robinson's debacle shows the power of long-term local anti-racist work

"Can't a white man get a beer in England anymore? It's two-tier justice."

The drunken rant of an ageing "patriot" outside the Tesco's Express on Westminister Bridge Road, which had stopped selling alcohol for the day, marked a risible end to a dreary day for Tommy Robinson's supporters on Saturday.

Videos of this man and others—inebriated, incoherent or both—have been widely shared by Robinson's detractors online, rightly exposing his supporters to widespread ridicule. Alongside clips of Robinson ludicrously asserting that the demonstration was the biggest protest in British history and videos of the truly awful caterwauling of Christian "musician" and alleged gold smuggler Rikki Dolan from the stage in Parliament Square, the response of many has been to laugh at Robinson's London debacle.

Still, Robinson’s 16 May mobilisation was a contradictory affair. It was both a warning and a setback. The warning is obvious; tens of thousands of people marched through central London behind a fascist-led, racist and Islamophobic project. Even if we reject the ridiculous claims circulated by Robinson and his supporters of "millions on the streets", and even if my own estimate of around 35,000 is closer to the truth than the police figure of around 60,000, the mobilisation remains huge by any historical standard. Robinson is far from finished. He remains the central street figure of British fascism, capable of uniting a hard core of racists, Islamophobes, conspiracy theorists and layers radicalised by the wider rightward shift in British politics.

Nonetheless, the setback is just as real. Robinson wanted to reproduce 13 September, the biggest fascist-led mobilisation in British history, when he mobilised 110,000 people. He wanted to show that his street machine still had forward momentum and to turn Reform’s electoral breakthrough into fascist confidence on the streets. He wanted another spectacular proof that his forces could periodically occupy central London and present themselves as the authentic voice of the nation. In all this, he failed.

This mixed picture is the point from which all serious analysis of 16 May has to begin. Robinson’s mobilisation was large, but it was not triumphant. It was dangerous, but diminished. It showed that British fascism remains a real force, but also that the line of advance opened up by last year’s racist riots, hotel protests and Robinson’s September demonstration has been interrupted.

The numbers and the politics of spectacle

Numbers are central to fascist politics because fascism is more than an ideology. Rather, it is a politics of force, visibility and intimidation. Robinson’s movement depends on spectacle: the repeated appearance of a mass on the streets capable of convincing supporters, enemies and wavering layers that history is moving in its direction.

The police estimate of 60,000 was already far below the figure for September. My own estimate is lower, around 35,000, based on counting sections of the march, timing flows past fixed points, assessing density at the assembly point, and comparing the occupied space in Parliament Square and Whitehall. Large sections of Whitehall, where the march ended, were nearly empty; Robinson’s organisers had placed screens down the road as if expecting a much larger crowd, but many of them were watched by thin groups rather than dense masses.

The exact number is less important than the political significance. Whether one accepts 35,000 or the police figure of 60,000, Robinson failed to reproduce September, after which he had proclaimed, in effect, a strategy of periodic national demonstrations. He promised that every six months would deliver the central London march, the flags, the stage, the foreign speakers, the livestreams and the claim that the people are rising.

Such a strategy of spectacle depends on escalation. If the spectacle shrinks, it begins to expose its own dependence on hype.

Robinson’s behaviour confirmed the pressures he is under to constantly grow. He repeatedly claimed “millions” attended and then circulated fake news that Keir Starmer had resigned and implied that his demonstration had forced the resignation.

Of course, this behaviour is absurd and laughable, but it also reveals his need to convert a setback into a myth of victory. Fascist leadership depends on the performance of inevitability. When reality fails to supply it, fantasy must do the work instead.

The crowd: Robinson’s hardened core

The composition of the march was also significant. Compared with September, the 16 May crowd appeared narrower, older, more male and more recognisably drawn from the traditional Robinson/EDL milieu. September had drawn broader layers: families, women, younger participants and people pulled into the gravitational field of the local anti-migrant protests. This time, the social weight looked thinner.

One of the most striking features was the bacchanalian levels of drinking. Around the Kingsway/Holborn assembly point there were thousands of empty beer cans and bottles. Many participants were visibly drunk, and some even required medical attention after collapsing in the street. It is no exaggeration to state that both Holborn and Whitehall stank of alcohol and public urination for hours afterwards.

Robinson presents his movement as disciplined, patriotic and respectable, but the actually existing social body of the march looked much closer to the old EDL: overwhelmingly male, aggressive and heavy drinking. Racist chants and flags worn as capes created a “day out with the lads” atmosphere that cut against Robinson's narratives about his supporters as "peaceful patriots" who are misunderstood by those outside the movement.

Moreover, the Islamophobia was open, with Robinson calling for Muslims to be deported from Britain. The anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen demanded "Islam" be driven out of public office, a horrifying echo of the Nazis' banning of Jews from the German civil service.

The intimidation was real too. After the demonstration had dispersed, I witnessed Robinson supporters attack a black homeless man with a placard stick after he asked what they were doing.

So, there should be no sanitising this mobilisation. It was not a harmless patriotic protest. It was a fascist-led march whose function and reality was racist intimidation. Yet, that is precisely why the reduced numbers are significant. Robinson retained the hardened core, but failed to reproduce the broader coalition that made September so dangerous.

Why Robinson’s numbers fell

The fall in numbers reflects a shift in the balance of forces on the ground. September was fed by the momentum of local racist mobilisations outside asylum accommodation. These protests created a rolling national atmosphere: repeated local demonstrations, racist rumours, Telegram networks, speeches, council pressure, local press coverage, Reform amplification and a sense that the anti-migrant street movement was spreading. Those local flashpoints were the infrastructure of Robinson’s national breakthrough.

Since then, that infrastructure has been damaged. Stand Up to Racism, which has emerged as the leading antifascist force in Britain, and local anti-racists have pushed back in area after area: Epping, Hillingdon, Manchester, Dundee, South Wales, the South Coast and beyond. In many places this work began from very little. It involved exposing fascists, mobilising locally, building links with trade unionists and communities, and refusing to allow racist protests to become normalised.

This is one of the most important lessons of 16 May. National fascist mobilisations are built locally before they appear nationally. Robinson does not simply conjure tens of thousands out of social media. His national events draw strength from local racist networks, hotel protests, flag campaigns and street confidence. When these are pushed back, his national capacity is reduced.

This is why the 16 May setback belongs to the anti-racist movement. Robinson has not been destroyed, and the danger has not passed. Nevertheless, sustained local anti-racist work helped run down the momentum he needed. The victory belongs to anti-racist activists up and down Britain.

Reform, Robinson and the uneven rightward shift

Nonetheless, the wider context remains extremely fraught. Reform’s electoral breakthrough has transformed the political atmosphere and gave Robinson an opportunity to present his mobilisation as part of a wider revolt against Keir Starmer, Labour and the political establishment.

Still, 16 May shows that the relationship between Reform’s electoral advance and fascist street mobilisation is mediated, not automatic. Reform and Robinson are distinct poles within the wider far-right field. Reform seeks electoral respectability; it wants councils, MPs, media legitimacy, donors and the ability to pose as a government-in-waiting. Robinson provides street affect, spectacle and confrontation, but he is toxic to Reform’s official brand.

Nevertheless, the separation is not clean. Reform benefits from the racist common sense generated by anti-migrant street agitation, and local Reform activists often orbit hotel protests even where the party maintains formal distance. The themes are shared: invasion, borders, the alleged sexual depravity of "foreigners", national betrayal and an “ordinary people” ignored by elites. Robinson helps produce the affective temperature in which Reform grows, and Reform helps legitimate the anti-migrant politics Robinson embodies in street form.

The fact that Reform’s electoral breakthrough did not automatically translate into a larger Robinson march is therefore instructive. It shows that the far right’s advance is not a smooth, unified process. Instead, it is uneven, fractured and contested. That unevenness creates openings for anti-racists.

Palestine and the anti-racist front

The unity of the Palestine movement and the anti-racist movement was one of the most important features of the day, delivering a counter-demonstration of huge proportions. Palestine Solidarity Campaign claimed 250,000 participants, but even conservative estimates put the figure well over 100,000.

Robinson’s politics has become increasingly structured around hostility to Palestine solidarity. Since 2023, he has tried to present the Palestine movement as Islamist, antisemitic, foreign and anti-British. This is central to his attempt to build a nationalist street movement against one of the largest progressive eruptions in modern British history. It has also allowed him to periodically win support from the most hardened establishment opponents of the Palestine movement, including Home Secretary Suella Braverman in 2023 and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch in 2026.

This is why the 16 May counter-mobilisation mattered politically. It was called as both "Nakba 78: March for Palestine" and "United Against Tommy Robinson and the Far Right", with an alliance coalescing around Stand Up to Racism, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War, Friends of Al Aqsa, the Palestinian Forum in Britain, the Muslim Association of Britain and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Importantly, this unity was not artiticial or merely organisational. It corresponded to the figure of the enemy constructed by Robinson himself. He targets Muslims, migrants, refugees, Palestine supporters, anti-racists, socialists and the left as part of one threatening bloc. The answer cannot be to separate Palestine from anti-racism, or anti-racism from anti-fascism. The far right fuses its enemies: unity must be built in response.

The state and sections of the establishment attempted to create a different alignment. In the run-up to the demonstration, the discourse around the terrible Golders Green stabbings, antisemitism and public order was used to smear Palestine mobilisation and anti-racist counter-protest. Robinson sought to benefit from this atmosphere: his crowd as disciplined patriots, Palestine supporters as disorderly threats. The Met colluded by handing the symbolic heart of the capital to the fascist mobilisation, and Badenoch and Nigel Farage ran cover for Robinson.

Wake me up when September ends

These dynamics turned 16 May into a struggle over legitimacy. Robinson wants more than the right to march; he wants the coercive presence of his movement to appear legitimate. He wants to occupy symbolic national space under police protection while claiming persecution by the state. Indeed, he wants two narratives at once: the censored patriot silenced by Starmer, and the disciplined national movement trusted by police to assemble in central London. This is why Robinson used the banning of foreign far-right speakers to construct a repression narrative, but also praised police facilitation and claimed recognition for his demonstration from the Met.

This is no minor inconsistency. Rather, it is central to contemporary fascist strategy. Fascist movements often seek a double relation to the state: outlaw and auxiliary. They present themselves as persecuted outsiders while offering themselves as defenders of order. They denounce the state when it constrains them, but demand its protection when they confront their enemies.

In this sense, 16 May was a fight over legitimate force. Robinson sought to present a drunk, racist, overwhelmingly male street mobilisation as patriotic public order. The Palestine and anti-racist mobilisation was, by contrast, repeatedly framed by its enemies as disorderly, threatening and suspect. The political danger lies in this asymmetry: the far right’s intimidation is normalised, while anti-racist resistance is treated as the problem.

That asymmetry must be broken. Anti-fascism has to expose not only Robinson’s ideology but the social function of his marches: to make Muslims, migrants, refugees, Palestine supporters and anti-racists experience public space as hostile.

It was an enormous victory that the fascists were incapable of intimidating the counter-demonstration. It will build confidence among many who saw the violence on 13 September and were concerned about coming out, and it will doubtlessly strengthen future street opposition to Robinson.

Fragmentation inside the far right

16 May also revealed the internal fragmentation of the far right. The presence of harder neo-Nazi and "ethno-nationalist" forces, including Patriotic Alternative, the British Democrats and White Vanguard, shows Robinson faces competitors within his own movement. Robinson’s crowd was not politically homogeneous; it was a field of struggle.

Robinson’s politics is civic-nationalist and counter-jihad in form. It says the primary enemy is Islam rather than race. It allows some Jews, Sikhs, Hindus and other non-Muslim minorities to be conditionally incorporated into an anti-Muslim coalition. It loudly supports Israel, using pro-Israel politics as a shield against accusations of antisemitism and as a weapon against Palestine solidarity.

Ethno-nationalists reject this. For them, Robinson is compromised by Israel, civic nationalism, foreign influence and police respectability. They want a politics of whiteness, “native” identity and open demographic struggle.

The result is not simple division; it is competition within proximity. The harder fascist forces may denounce Robinson, but they also treat his mobilisation as a recruitment opportunity. They know that many in his base can be pulled further right.

This is why fragmentation is double-edged. It weakens Robinson’s authority, but can radicalise the field. Each faction competes to prove it is more authentic, less compromised, more serious and more willing to say what others conceal.

Restore Britain and the next adaptation

The rise of Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain has to be understood in this context.

Restore may represent a new attempt to solve the organisational weaknesses of Robinsonism. Robinson’s model is spectacular, decentralised and highly personalised. It can produce major national mobilisations, but it is uneven and unstable. It struggles to build durable local structures. It depends on periodic surges.

Restore offers something different: an MP in Rupert Lowe, branch meetings, membership structures, a more formal party shape and appeal to harder ethno-nationalist layers.

This is dangerous because it could combine several elements: local activists from hotel protests and flag campaigns, harder deportationist rhetoric, former BNP and Patriotic Alternative activists, and a more respectable political surface. It may seek to learn both from Robinson’s strengths and his weaknesses.

However, Restore also inherits the classic problem of British fascist party-building. A centralised organisation is easier to expose, target and split. Its respectable front is vulnerable to contamination by the neo-Nazi elements it attracts.

So, British fascism is not simply declining. Rather, it is experimenting. A setback for Robinson may accelerate the search for alternative forms. Anti-fascists must avoid triumphalism.

16 May did not end Robinsonism. Nonetheless, it has checked it.

Robinson remains capable of mobilising tens of thousands. The wider far right remains buoyed by Reform’s electoral advance and Labour’s crisis. The conditions that produce fascism—chronic political crisis, imperial decline, racism, state authoritarianism and political disillusionment—remain in place.

However, Robinson failed to reproduce September. His spectacle shrank, and his crowd narrowed. His boasting became ridiculous, and his base was openly contested by harder fascist forces. His six-monthly national mobilisation strategy now looks much weaker. The anti-racist movement helped run down the local momentum that fed his previous breakthrough.

So, 16 May was a victory for the British anti-fascist movement. It was not a final victory, but anti-racists have given an object lesson in how fascist momentum can be interrupted. Robinson wanted to show that he owned the streets. Instead, he revealed the instability of his own movement.