Over the weekend, more than 100,000 people filled the streets of London for the “Unite the Kingdom” demonstration—a well-resourced, well-funded, and strategically organized march led by the likes of Stephen Yackley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson).
Many people were shocked by how much they attracted, but for anyone who has paid attention to the scale of discontent in the country, and the success of figures like Yaxley-Lennon, it feels like a disturbingly predictable next step in a campaign to twist people’s fears and anger into something darker and more dangerous.
For almost two decades, living standards in the UK have fallen . Life has become much harder for most people. Bills have risen, rents are out of control, more people have fallen into poverty.
Wherever we live, we all see that there is something deeply broken at the heart of this country: our high streets are deserted, our town centres are squeezed, and our public services are collapsing due to a lack of investment. Too many people are homeless or sleeping rough.
But instead of taking action, governments have simply stood by while the super-rich and corporations Hoover Up Wealth, leaving ordinary people with nothing. They have sat on their hands while landlords have imposed rents on people who can’t afford to pay a penny more. They have looked the other way while water companies have repeatedly raised prices, dumping sewage into our rivers and seas. They have shrugged their shoulders while huge corporations pay poverty wages and then take their huge profits offshore to avoid paying taxes.
People are rightly feeling depressed.
“Living standards in Britain have fallen for almost two decades”
This failure of political leadership by successive governments has left a vast vacuum at the heart of this country. It is being filled by a toxic coalition of fascist agitators, and super-rich big business-backed politicians like Reform’s Nigel Farage. They would rather divert attention from the real causes of people’s struggles (in which they are complicit) and instead focus people’s anger on an easy target: people coming from abroad, whether it is to flee violence, or to work in our NHS, or to keep our social care system running.
But while rage and discontent fuel the movement, this march was not a spontaneous outpouring of popular anger. It was strategically organized by figures like Yaxley-Lennon, with a specific agenda to channel that anger into racism, prejudice, and bullying.
What is particularly troubling is how the message — that immigrants are to blame for all our problems — is starting to trickle down beyond the fringes and is being repeated more widely. It is starting to resonate among people who would never call themselves racist, who would not identify with far-right politics, but who repeat the same lines, nod their heads, and internalize the same suspicions as they desperately search for a solution to the decline and suffering they see all around them.
This is possible because as a country we have failed to adequately address the prejudices that bubble beneath so much talk about migration, about crime, about foreign policy, and that in moments of extreme tension erupt into open hatred. Some public figures are outspoken in their support of racist views – some do it subtly, and others simply fail to denounce it.
That’s what makes this moment so dangerous. It’s not just about organized racists on the platform — it’s about how their message seeps into the mainstream, fueling prejudice in spaces where it might once have been challenged.
“Last weekend’s march showed us that we have no time to waste”
It has never been more important to be loud, clear and honest about the problems we face and how we are fixing them. We must be fearless in saying that people like Nigel Farage and Stephen Yackley-Lennon, who blame migrants and minorities for the struggles people face, are simply providing cover for the real source of our problems: the multi-millionaires and billionaires who profit from exploiting workers, farmers, tenants, renters
Until we stop the super-rich from taking unprecedented money out of our communities and moving it into tax havens, the decline we see all around us will continue—and the far right will continue to grow stronger, fueling the resentment and powerlessness that is so deeply felt across the country and leading us down a dark path from which it will be hard to return.
There is an alternative – and we can all play our part in fighting for it.
Taking back our wealth from multimillionaires and billionaires to rebuild our communities with strong public services, unionizing to fight for our rights at work, pressuring government to act to reduce our bills, getting to know our neighbors so we can work with them, not fear them.
Last weekend’s march showed us that we have no time to waste – the future of our country is at stake, and we must work to move us toward a better future.
