Far-Right UK Riots Spark 'Stand Up to Racism' Counterprotests
"The majority of people in Britain abhor Robinson and the far right," says one joint statement. "We are the majority, they are the few."
From Birmingham, Brighton, and Bristol, to Liverpool, London, Newcastle, and Northampton, counterprotesters gathered across the United Kingdom on Wednesday to decry far-right riots and attacks against immigrants and Muslims.
Since the weekend, far-right protesters have targeted mosques, libraries, and even a hotel housing asylum-seekers—responding at least in part to online disinformation about the suspect in a deadly stabbing attack on a children's dance class. The demonstrations and expectations they would continue Wednesday evening drew anti-racists to the streets in several U.K. cities.
"The far right are spreading racism, Islamophobia, and hatred," says a Stand Up to Racism statement published in the Daily Mirror Wednesday and signed by actors, artists, drag performers, journalists, labor leaders, musicians, peace advocates, and members of Parliament—including Jeremy Corbyn, an Independent, along with Labour's Diane Abbott and Zarah Sultana.
The statement calls out far-right activist Tommy Robinson as well as political figures in the United Kingdom—including MP Nigel Farage of Reform U.K. and former Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman—and across Europe, emphasizing that "racism and Islamophobia in Parliament is leading to racism and Islamophobia on the streets."
Despite Labour's unpopularity under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the party last month ended 14 years of Conservative rule at the national level with a landslide electoral victory. While Starmer has condemned the recent far-right riots, critics including Sultana have called on him and other British to explicitly denounce the attacks as Islamophobic.
"All those who oppose this must join in a united mass movement powerful enough to drive back the fascist. The majority of people in Britain abhor Robinson and the far right," the new joint statement says. We are the majority, they are the few. Britain has a proud history of defeating fascists and racists. We can defeat them again. We must Stand Up to Racism, Islamophobia, and antisemitism."
In response to such calls, as The Independent reported Wednesday, "up to 25,000 protesters, some chanting 'hate not welcome' and 'refugees welcome here,' gathered in towns and cities like Walthamstow, Finchley, Birmingham, Newcastle, and Blackpool as nearly 100 far-right rallies failed to materialize."
As Sky News detailed:
In Birmingham, several hundred anti-racism protesters—some carrying signs such as "no place for hate" and "bigots out of Brum"—gathered outside a migrant center in the Jewellery Quarter.
A large group then marched into the center of the city, with no signs of any far-right groups in the area.
Meanwhile,
"counterprotesters are outnumbering anti-immigration protesters in Brighton tonight by about a hundred to one," and chanting, "Fascist scum, off our streets," according to Brighton and Hove News.
BBC News reported that "thousands of people gathered in Old Market in Bristol to counter a rumored anti-immigration rally," specifically, "claims on social media that protestors were planning to target an immigration lawyer's business premises."
"Bristol is a very vibrant and a welcoming city," a man who is originally from Gambia named Habib told the BBC. "Bristolians would not allow anybody to bring chaos into Bristol... I'm gonna join the Bristolians to stop what's going to happen tonight."
"Like the old saying goes—divided we fall, together we stand," he said. "I think standing here together tonight is very significant."
The crowd in Bristol chanted, "Say it out loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here," a message repeated by signs carried in the English city and beyond it. Their posters and banners also forcefully denounced racism and fascism.
"In Liverpool they held banners such as 'Nans Against Nazis,' 'Immigrants welcome. Racists not,' and 'When the poor blame the poor only the rich win," The Guardian reported. "An elderly man with a portable speaker resting on his walking frame played John Lennon's 'Give Peace a Chance' on repeat."
In the city known as the birthplace of The Beatles, counterprotesters were protecting the Asylum Link building, according to The Liverpool Echo. Addressing the crowd, Ewan Roberts, who manages the center thanked everyone for coming out "even when you weren't asked" and declared that "the people are stronger when they are united."
Counterprotesters came together in multiple locations across London, with some chanting, "When fascists attack, we fight back."
In Walthamstow, a town in an outer London borough, Clara Serra López told the BBC that "England wouldn't be anything without immigration."
"I'm here because I am an immigrant, a European immigrant, which comes with a lot of privilege," the demonstrator added. "It is quite an important time for white British and white immigrants to show up for the ones that might be really fearful to come here."
As ChronicleLive reported:
Thousands of people gathered in Newcastle's West End on Wednesday evening in a counterprotest in moving scenes outside The Beacon on Westgate Road. The crowd is estimated to have exceeded 3,000 as locals vowed to stand up to the far-right. Demonstrators held up signs reading "Geordies are of all colours" and "We love our West End".
One attendee of the counterdemonstration vowed: "This is a peaceful protest. We will defend our community."
"We were expecting big numbers of people, but you do have to see it to believe it. It makes me so happy to have seen so many here," Madina Mosque Imam Ali Asad, who attended the Newcastle demonstration, told the outlet. "It makes me happy to see the fact that this is beyond race or religion. It's about community."
In Northampton, footage shared on social media showed counterprotesters dancing on Kettering Road.
There were also demonstrations in cities including Sheffield and Southampton. In the latter, "around 50 far-right demonstrators turned up," according to The Telegraph, "but their chants were drowned out by around 400 counterprotesters who sang 'there are many, many, many more of us than you.'"
