Fascists and football hooligans – led by fascist Tommy Robinson (aka Stephen Yaxley Lennon) former member of Nazi BNP and founder of the far right English Defence League (EDL) – fought with police and marched on the Cenotaph as a Remembrance service was about to take place.
Despite an exclusion zone supposedly being in place around the Cenotaph, around 1,000 football hooligans and fascists were able to gather at Embankment Station and march on the monument.
Many were already drinking alcohol as they congregated at 10am.
Police were nowhere to be seen in the area around Embankment and Charing Cross. The march only encountered police once it reached Whitehall.
There, officers with drawn batons scuffled with protestors before the demonstration broke through police lines and surged towards the Cenotaph. Footage shows hooligans and fascists attacking officers before chanting “England!”.
Groups of fascists and football hooligans with ski masks climbed onto the railing as a Remembrance service took place and chanted “England!” after the one minutes silence at 11am.
As the afternoon unfolded, the far right protesters clashed with the police more intensely on Whitehall, as their crowds “became more and more drunken, lairy and agressive”, one eyewitness told Stand Up To Racism from the scene, adding that “a group of 100 or so of them went on to defend against another fantasised threat, to the Churchill statue”.
Weyman Bennett, Stand Up To Racism co convenor, said:
“What we saw on the streets today was the bitter fruits of the dangerous comments by Sunak and Braverman this week, whipping up fear of an imaginary threat to the Cenotaph, and inciting fascists like Robinson to take to the streets.
“Today saw the largest mobilisation of the far right since five years ago, before the anti racist movement defeated the street movement Robinson was seeking to build off the terraces and before we defeated him through mass action to expose and oppose the fascists when he attempted and failed to get elected as an MEP.
“It is critical that the anti racist and anti fascist movement take this threat seriously. Stand Up To Racism is holding it’s international conference, Resisting the Rise of Racism and Fascism, with around 700 already booked, on Sunday 19 November, which will be discussing how to take on the rise of the new far right and the threat of the racist offensive from Braverman and the Sunak government.”
Sabby Dhalu, Stand Up To Racism co convenor, said:
“Allowing violent, fascist, racist thugs to demonstrate near the cenotaph is an insult to all those that lost their lives in war. This flies in the face of the true meaning of armistice: peace. We call on the police to take action against those that perpetrate violence, racism, Islamophobia and hatred.”
