Protesters rally in London against UK far-right rise / Photo: Henry Nicholls - AFP
Protesters rally in London against UK far-right rise
Tens of thousands of people marched through central London Saturday to protest the far-right, six months after Britain saw one of its largest-ever far-right demonstrations and weeks ahead of key local elections.
Organised by hundreds of groups, including trade unions, anti-racism campaigners and Muslim representative bodies, the Together Alliance event was billed as the biggest march in UK history to counter the far right.
London's Metropolitan Police said it was "hard to have an accurate estimate due to how far spread the crowds are" but provided a "rough estimate of around 50,000 people" in attendance.
Protesters carrying placards with slogans like "no to racism" and "you cannot divide us" marched from near Marble Arch to Whitehall near the UK parliament for a planned rally.
A separate pro-Palestinian march was set to converge with the main demonstration, which appeared to have attracted people of all ages from across Britain.
"There's a global toxic climate and the UK is not fighting it," student Emily Roth, 23, told AFP as she walked the route.
"We're seeing racist incidents everyday and it's not being dealt with. The government is obsessed with immigration but that's not our biggest problem."
The police said it was deploying a "significant" presence to ensure the protests passed off safely, though no far-right counter-demonstration was advertised.
The Together Alliance march followed a rally organised last September by far-right activist Tommy Robinson that drew up to 150,000 people, many of whom draped themselves in English and British flags.
That rally was marred on its fringes by what police called "unacceptable violence" which saw clashes with officers that left several of them seriously injured.
- 'Worried' -
Robinson is planning a follow-up rally in mid-May.
Saturday's event also came less than six weeks before voters head to the polls for elections to Scotland's parliament, the devolved assembly in Wales and local councils in London as well as some other parts of England.
Anti-immigration figurehead Nigel Farage's hard-right Reform UK party, which has been leading in national polls for over a year, is predicted to perform well across the contests.
Robert Gadwick, 48, who had travelled from Bath in western England for Saturday's march, said he was "worried" about Reform's rise.
"We've been there with Brexit -- it's all the same lies and yet some people decide to believe it," he told AFP.
"We need to speak the truth... voting for Reform is a vote for more chaos and more uncertainty and we certainly don't need more chaos."
Retiree Rose Batterfield, of Stratford-upon-Avon in central England, echoed the sentiment, saying the "current political climate" concerned her.
"I don't really recognise Labour anymore," she said of the country's centre-left ruling party.
"I'm quite stunned really by their immigration proposals," Batterfield added of Labour's increasingly hardening stance towards asylum-seekers and other immigrants as it tries counter Reform's appeal among its own traditional working class base.
"The idea that you can implement far-right ideas in order to stop the far right is nonsense."
Z.Aina--HStB
