More than 110,000 people join Tommy Robinson-organised protest featuring racist conspiracy theories and hate speech
More than 110,000 people have taken part in a far-right street protest organised by the activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, in what is thought to be the largest nationalist event in decades.
Marchers travelled to London by train and coach for a demonstration, which was billed as a “festival of free speech”, but by its conclusion had amplified racist conspiracy theories and anti-Muslim hate speech across Whitehall.
The scale of the protest vastly outgrew police estimates resulting in tense and at times violent clashes between protesters and police.
The Metropolitan police said at least 25 people were arrested and 26 officers were injured, including four who were seriously hurt. Marchers were arrested for a range of offences, including affray, violent disorder, assaults and criminal damage.
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A mock sign greets delegates arriving at DSEI. (Photo: Vuk Valcic / Alamy)
Press freedom groups condemn organiser’s last minute decision to deny Declassified entry.
A major arms fair has been criticised by press freedom groups for refusing to let Declassified enter the event, which is being held for the first time since Labour took power.
The biennial Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) trade show is hosting over 50 Israeli companies this week at London’s sprawling ExCel Centre, despite cancelling plans for an Israeli government pavilion.
Exhibitors include Rafael, a missile manufacturer wholly owned by the Israeli state, and private weapons firm Elbit, which supplies 85% of drones used in Gaza.
It marks the first time Declassified has been denied media accreditation, having attended the last two DSEI events.
Those took place under Conservative governments in 2023 and 2021, when we questioned defence ministers about arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Reporters Without Borders said the decision to block Declassified this year was “worrying”, “anti-democratic” and “suggests there is something to hide.”
When Declassified was allowed to enter DSEI in 2021, event spokesman General Roddy Porter claimed: “We’ve got nothing to hide here. This is a legitimate government transactional business.”
DSEI is organised by the company Clarion Events but relies on close cooperation from the UK’s Ministry of Defence, Foreign Office and trade department.
Defend Our Juries (DOJ) said the action is planned on condition of at least 1,000 people pledging support, but hundreds more are said to be planning to take part, with a boost in support after a number of activists involved in organising the protests were arrested under terror laws.
Attendees are expected to refuse street bail, requiring more people to be taken into custody, and they plan to go “floppy”, forcing officers to physically carry them away.
Scotland Yard’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan warned that anyone showing support for Palestine Action would face arrest. He said the group was proscribed as a terrorist organisation and that police had the “officer numbers, custody capacity and all other resources to process as many people as is required.”
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Police officers make an arrest at a “Lift The Ban” demonstration in support of the proscribed group Palestine Action in Parliament Square on August 9, 2025.
“Let us be under no illusion,” said one organizer. “The government is criminalizing the people of Britain for standing up against the biggest genocide of the 21st century, as it’s livestreamed from Gaza.”
British campaigners reported Saturday that the sheer volume of people who showed up in London’s Parliament Square to support the nonviolent advocacy group Palestine Action presented a major challenge for the Metropolitan Police, who had threatened to arrest anyone supporting the organization.
The campaign group Defend Our Juries reported that as of 4:00 pm local time, at least 200 people had been arrested for joining the protest, where more than 1,000 sat silently in the square with many displaying signs that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
Others held signs reading, “Is this why you joined the police?” as officers arrested demonstrators including National Health Service workers; a blind man using a wheelchair; author Jonathon Porritt; and former Guantánamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg, who now advocates for wrongly-imprisoned people swept up in the War on Terror.
BREAKING: Moazzam Begg, a never convicted former Guantanamo prisoner and senior director of CAGE international, was just arrested under the Terrorism Act.
Alongside approximately a thousand others, he held a sign which said "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action" pic.twitter.com/UNFgE4zQPi
“The fact that unprecedented numbers came out today risking arrest and possible imprisonment, shows how repulsed and ashamed people are about our government’s ongoing complicity in a livestreamed genocide, and the lengths people are prepared to go to defend this country’s ancient liberties,” said a spokesperson for Defend Our Juries, which also organized a protest last month where more than two dozen people were arrested.
The protests have been held to demand that the government reverse its June decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organization after it vandalized two military airplanes. The ban on the organization means that anyone who publicly supports Palestine Action risks up to 14 years in prison.
Palestine Action was formed in 2020 to demand an end to Israeli apartheid policies in the occupied Palestinian territories including Gaza and the West Bank. It has organized nonviolent actions since Israel began bombarding Gaza and blockading nearly all humanitarian aid in October 2023—killing more than 61,000 Palestinians, injuring more than 150,000, creating the largest per capita population of child amputees in the world, and starving at least 212 people so far.
“Palestine Action and people holding cardboard signs present no danger to the public at large, whereas the people who have lobbied for this ban—the arms companies and Israel lobbies—have the blood of 60,000 Palestinians on their hands,” said Defend Our Juries.
The government’s ban, announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, faces a legal challenge scheduled to be heard by the U.K. High Court in November. The court granted a full judicial review to Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori.
United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk warned last month that the U.K.’s proscription of the group “is at odds with the U.K.’s obligations under international human rights law” and noted that “according to international standards, terrorist acts should be confined to criminal acts intended to cause death or serious injury or to the taking of hostages”—not property damage.
Defend Our Juries said the mass arrest of Palestinian rights advocates is taking place as Britain continues to provide support to the Israeli military, which is moving towards a full takeover of Gaza under the orders of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“They’re being arrested for holding signs in opposition to genocide and the ban of Palestine Action,” said the group as hundreds of people were carried away from Parliament Square by Metropolitan Police. “Meanwhile, the ones enabling the mass murder of Palestinians face no consequences.”
Mass arrests under the Terrorism Act are ongoing at Parliament Square.
They're being arrested for holding signs in opposition to genocide and the ban of Palestine Action.
Meanwhile, the ones enabling the mass murder of Palestinians, face no consequences pic.twitter.com/OWecwhX85J
Support from civil society groups for Palestine Action and the organizations demanding a reversal of the ban grew this past week ahead of the protest. More than 300 Jewish Britons including film director Mike Leigh; children’s author Michael Rosen; and Geoffrey Bindman, a former legal instructor to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, calling the ban “illegitimate” in a letter to Downing Street.
“The government should stop deflecting attention from genocide by linking nonviolent protest to terrorism,” read the letter.
Begg noted Saturday that “historically, civil disobedience has been employed in this country, as well as by the American civil rights movement and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, to challenge unjust and oppressive laws.”
“This action is not about Palestine Action, but wider issues of how anti-terror legislation curtails basic freedoms and undermines the rule of law,” he said. “There can be no doubt that such laws have been, and continue to be abused and exploited, to suppress free speech and put in place an oppressive infrastructure that represents a danger to our civil liberties.”
“In such moments, all those who resist are acting in the public interest and are motivated by the desire to protect fundamental principles of fairness, equality, and justice,” he added. “How can it be a crime to call for an end to apartheid and genocide? The planned action on August 9 is motivated by the highest moral principles that have underpinned our society and made it the envy of the world.”
“Let us be under no illusion,” said Begg. “The government is criminalizing the people of Britain for standing up against the biggest genocide of the 21st century, as it’s livestreamed from Gaza. That is why it must be opposed.”in for standing up against the biggest genocide of the 21st century, as it’s livestreamed from Gaza. That is why it must be opposed.”
