Roshan Muhammed Salih was at the rally – what he witnessed was five hours of raw, unapologetic Islamophobia, broadcast to the world from Parliament Square. Had this been an anti-Jewish march, it would never have been permitted. But Britain’s normalisation of Islamophobia reveals an uncomfortable truth: that when it comes to Muslims, the rules simply do not apply.
Let me be direct: it is an absolute disgrace that the Unite the Kingdom march was permitted to take place in central London on 16th May.
Had this been an explicitly anti-Jewish rally, it would never have been allowed. The target was Muslims, and so the Metropolitan Police waved it through, handing Tommy Robinson one of the most symbolic stages in the country: Parliament Square, for five uninterrupted hours of hatred.
I was there. What I witnessed was raw, unapologetic Islamophobia.
Robinson stood on stage, lying about so-called Muslim rape gangs, casually branding Muslims as paedophiles. Three French women mocked the burqa, ridiculing Muslim women to a cheering crowd.
Beer, bacon, and borrowed faith
A cellist performed with bacon slices draped over his shoulders. Speaker after speaker called for Islam to be removed from schools, for Muslims to be deported, and for Islam to be driven out of British public life entirely.
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Had any of this been directed at visibly Jewish men and women, arrests would have followed within a day. The double standard was brazen and impossible to ignore.
The crowd told its own story. Drunken men. Beer bottles everywhere. Israeli flags. Iranian monarchist flags. And a hollow, performative Christianity utterly unrecognisable from anything in the Bible – put on show not out of faith, but out of hatred for Islam and Muslims.
These were not believers. They were people who had borrowed the aesthetic of a religion they do not practise, simply because they despise ours.
There was, however, one significant upside. Turnout was sharply down from last year, when roughly 150,000 people marched. This time, estimates put the crowd at 50,000 to 60,000 at most, with visible empty spaces across Parliament Square.
The influence of the far right
Tommy Robinson still commands a following, but the movement has clearly peaked. A growing number of people appear to have concluded what many of us have long known – that he is a Zionist grifter, on the payroll of foreign interests, deployed to push agendas that have nothing to do with the ordinary British people he claims to champion.
Despite the backing of foreign billionaires and the viral reach he enjoys on platforms like X, his movement is in decline.
But none of that should distract from what must happen next. The police explicitly warned that they would hold Robinson accountable if speakers crossed the line. They crossed it. He crossed it. Criminal offences were, in my view, committed that day – racially aggravated offences – and the police must now act accordingly.
Anything less would confirm what many Muslims already suspect: that there is one law for us, and another for everyone else.
What this rally exposed, above all else, is the depth to which Islamophobia has been normalised in Britain. Granting an open, hours-long hate festival targeting Muslims prime position outside the seat of British democracy is a stain on this country.
It must never happen again.
