Albie Amankona is a broadcaster, financial analyst, vice-chair of LGBT+ Conservatives, and co-founder of Conservatives Against Racism
I accidentally walked through the Unite the Kingdom march on my way to the spa at a members’ club. As opening lines go for an attack on elites, this is not ideal. Yet it also gave me a better sense of the crowd than much of the commentary produced by people denouncing it from the comfort of their chaise longues.
There were examples of racism and islamophobia; women on stage theatrically removed burqas to applause; performers draped bacon over themselves to mock Muslims; placards seemed to promote antisemitic conspiracy theories; people called for “total remigration” and to ‘remove Islam from public life’. Patriotic Alternative supporters were present too, including followers of Steve Laws, who later dismissed the rally itself as a “multicultural shitshow”.
By that evening, social media was filling with eyewitness accounts of alleged anti-Muslim harassment and violence across parts of London. One NHS doctor in west London claimed several Muslim women in hijabs had arrived at hospital after apparently unprovoked assaults, including one with devastating facial injuries. Muslim NHS staff reportedly felt unsafe travelling home alone after work. Whether every online claim proves accurate or not, the atmosphere surrounding parts of the day felt unmistakably hostile in a way that should trouble anyone who cares about public life.
None of this should be minimised or excused. Genuine racists and extremists were clearly present and visibly emboldened, but walking through the crowd, that was not the whole story. What struck me most was not rage, but familiarity. Dandy Livingstone and The Specials’ A Message to You Rudy blasted from speakers, a fittingly multiracial soundtrack for a supposedly white-nationalist mob. There were cans in hands, flags draped over shoulders, the smell of weed hanging in the air, and more than a few visibly dilated pupils. People laughed, sweated, and sang “Keir Starmer’s a wanker”.
The atmosphere felt less like a neo-fascist mobilisation than a politically charged street party: part football away day, part pub garden, part Notting Hill Carnival but more white British than black British; more lager than rum punch; more anti-Starmer than anti-everyone else.
It was mostly white, certainly, but not exclusively so. I had expected to feel uncomfortable. In truth, I felt oddly at ease. Not because there was nothing ugly around me, but because so many people there felt familiar. Many reminded me of the white working-class relatives who make up half my family. One West African migrant in attendance could easily have been one of my father’s relatives.
When I finally reached the sauna at my club, the contrast could hardly have been more absurd. Outside, thousands of people wrapped in St George’s flags had been drinking cans in the street, chanting, laughing and shuffling past police vans. Inside, a handful of members sat wrapped in towels discussing the march with panic induced by social media.
One referred to it, wrongly, as an “anti-Palestine” march. Another said he had worn a Union flag item of clothing that day and felt embarrassed about it, convinced people on the Tube assumed he was heading to the rally.
“Do you think it was better because you weren’t a white straight man wearing it?”, his friend asked.
Somewhere in that overheated, eucalyptus-infused little room was the modern metropolitan neurosis about Britain.
Our flag was no longer being treated as a shared national symbol, but as something requiring explanation and apology. Patriotism had become less an instinct than a reputational risk assessment.
The great mistake of elite Britain is to assume every working-class expression of patriotism is merely bigotry with better branding. Sometimes it is ugly and attractive to genuinely nasty people. More often, however, it is something simpler: people wanting to say that Britain is worth loving.
That is why Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting’s dismissal of the protesters as little more than Tommy Robinson supporters was so misguided. Strong politicians would not merely denounce these crowds from a distance; they would ask why Robinson has been allowed to monopolise a slogan as potent as “Unite the Kingdom” in the first place.
“Unite the Kingdom” should not belong to racists, cranks and street-corner demagogues. It should be the language of a mainstream, inclusive patriotism: one that says British identity is not a guilty secret, an ethnic possession or a private embarrassment, but a shared inheritance. Perhaps that means reviving the Corbyn-era proposal for a St George’s Day bank holiday and turning it into a proper national celebration: a British cultural day where flags, food, music, faith, family and belonging can be expressed without apology.
When white working-class Brits express attachment to their own symbols and traditions, polite society often becomes suspicious. A black Briton celebrating their Ghanaian roots is multiculturalism. A white plumber waving a St George’s flag is treated by much of elite Britain as a potential extremist. The historical baggage attached to English nationalism is real, but so too is the double standard. The truth is that many attendees were not rejecting multicultural Britain altogether. They were asserting that British identity still means something.
That does not excuse the racists any more than the presence of Islamist extremists, antisemitic cranks or vile chants at some pro-Palestine marches invalidates every person who attends those demonstrations. Despite appalling calls at a recent pro-Palestine protest for Tommy Robinson to be ‘shot in the neck like Charlie Kirk,’ as reported by TalkTV’s Samara Gill, most Palestine protestors are not Hamas-supporting extremists; they are horrified by civilian suffering in Gaza. Equally, most people at Unite the Kingdom were not fascists or neo-Nazis. Britain increasingly struggles to distinguish between a movement containing extremists and a movement defined by extremists.
That is also why neither movement should be banned outright, and why the Conservatives‘ position on banning pro-Palestine “hate marches” whilst permitting Unite the Kingdom is hypocritical. If we accept that the majority at Unite the Kingdom were not fascists despite the presence of racists and anti-Muslim agitators, then intellectual consistency requires accepting that the majority of pro-Palestine marchers are not extremists despite the presence of antisemitic or Islamist elements. None of this makes bigots less contemptible. But the left reducing Unite the Kingdom to fascism is as lazy as the right reducing every pro-Palestine protest to antisemitism.
Britain’s metropolitan elites prefer a simpler story. I say this with some self-awareness: I live in the city, I go to members’ clubs, and I overhear political sociology in saunas. Let me say this: we have nothing to fear from ordinary people wanting to celebrate the country they belong to, just as we have nothing to fear from ordinary people marching against the suffering of civilians abroad. What we should fear is leaving either impulse to extremists: patriotism to Tommy Robinson, cranks and racial obsessives; solidarity with Palestinians to antisemites, Islamists and Jihadists.
Elite Britain has become too embarrassed by national identity and too nervous around mass protest unless it can place every marcher into a convenient box. The crowd at Unite the Kingdom, for better or worse, was not embarrassed. Nor are the Palestine marchers who keep returning to the streets. That is why both unsettle so many people, and why both are worth understanding rather than simply condemning.
Albie Amankona is a broadcaster, financial analyst, vice-chair of LGBT+ Conservatives, and co-founder of Conservatives Against Racism
I accidentally walked through the Unite the Kingdom march on my way to the spa at a members’ club. As opening lines go for an attack on elites, this is not ideal. Yet it also gave me a better sense of the crowd than much of the commentary produced by people denouncing it from the comfort of their chaise longues.
There were examples of racism and islamophobia; women on stage theatrically removed burqas to applause; performers draped bacon over themselves to mock Muslims; placards seemed to promote antisemitic conspiracy theories; people called for “total remigration” and to ‘remove Islam from public life’. Patriotic Alternative supporters were present too, including followers of Steve Laws, who later dismissed the rally itself as a “multicultural shitshow”.
By that evening, social media was filling with eyewitness accounts of alleged anti-Muslim harassment and violence across parts of London. One NHS doctor in west London claimed several Muslim women in hijabs had arrived at hospital after apparently unprovoked assaults, including one with devastating facial injuries. Muslim NHS staff reportedly felt unsafe travelling home alone after work. Whether every online claim proves accurate or not, the atmosphere surrounding parts of the day felt unmistakably hostile in a way that should trouble anyone who cares about public life.
None of this should be minimised or excused. Genuine racists and extremists were clearly present and visibly emboldened, but walking through the crowd, that was not the whole story. What struck me most was not rage, but familiarity. Dandy Livingstone and The Specials’ A Message to You Rudy blasted from speakers, a fittingly multiracial soundtrack for a supposedly white-nationalist mob. There were cans in hands, flags draped over shoulders, the smell of weed hanging in the air, and more than a few visibly dilated pupils. People laughed, sweated, and sang “Keir Starmer’s a wanker”.
The atmosphere felt less like a neo-fascist mobilisation than a politically charged street party: part football away day, part pub garden, part Notting Hill Carnival but more white British than black British; more lager than rum punch; more anti-Starmer than anti-everyone else.
It was mostly white, certainly, but not exclusively so. I had expected to feel uncomfortable. In truth, I felt oddly at ease. Not because there was nothing ugly around me, but because so many people there felt familiar. Many reminded me of the white working-class relatives who make up half my family. One West African migrant in attendance could easily have been one of my father’s relatives.
When I finally reached the sauna at my club, the contrast could hardly have been more absurd. Outside, thousands of people wrapped in St George’s flags had been drinking cans in the street, chanting, laughing and shuffling past police vans. Inside, a handful of members sat wrapped in towels discussing the march with panic induced by social media.
One referred to it, wrongly, as an “anti-Palestine” march. Another said he had worn a Union flag item of clothing that day and felt embarrassed about it, convinced people on the Tube assumed he was heading to the rally.
“Do you think it was better because you weren’t a white straight man wearing it?”, his friend asked.
Somewhere in that overheated, eucalyptus-infused little room was the modern metropolitan neurosis about Britain.
Our flag was no longer being treated as a shared national symbol, but as something requiring explanation and apology. Patriotism had become less an instinct than a reputational risk assessment.
The great mistake of elite Britain is to assume every working-class expression of patriotism is merely bigotry with better branding. Sometimes it is ugly and attractive to genuinely nasty people. More often, however, it is something simpler: people wanting to say that Britain is worth loving.
That is why Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting’s dismissal of the protesters as little more than Tommy Robinson supporters was so misguided. Strong politicians would not merely denounce these crowds from a distance; they would ask why Robinson has been allowed to monopolise a slogan as potent as “Unite the Kingdom” in the first place.
“Unite the Kingdom” should not belong to racists, cranks and street-corner demagogues. It should be the language of a mainstream, inclusive patriotism: one that says British identity is not a guilty secret, an ethnic possession or a private embarrassment, but a shared inheritance. Perhaps that means reviving the Corbyn-era proposal for a St George’s Day bank holiday and turning it into a proper national celebration: a British cultural day where flags, food, music, faith, family and belonging can be expressed without apology.
When white working-class Brits express attachment to their own symbols and traditions, polite society often becomes suspicious. A black Briton celebrating their Ghanaian roots is multiculturalism. A white plumber waving a St George’s flag is treated by much of elite Britain as a potential extremist. The historical baggage attached to English nationalism is real, but so too is the double standard. The truth is that many attendees were not rejecting multicultural Britain altogether. They were asserting that British identity still means something.
That does not excuse the racists any more than the presence of Islamist extremists, antisemitic cranks or vile chants at some pro-Palestine marches invalidates every person who attends those demonstrations. Despite appalling calls at a recent pro-Palestine protest for Tommy Robinson to be ‘shot in the neck like Charlie Kirk,’ as reported by TalkTV’s Samara Gill, most Palestine protestors are not Hamas-supporting extremists; they are horrified by civilian suffering in Gaza. Equally, most people at Unite the Kingdom were not fascists or neo-Nazis. Britain increasingly struggles to distinguish between a movement containing extremists and a movement defined by extremists.
That is also why neither movement should be banned outright, and why the Conservatives‘ position on banning pro-Palestine “hate marches” whilst permitting Unite the Kingdom is hypocritical. If we accept that the majority at Unite the Kingdom were not fascists despite the presence of racists and anti-Muslim agitators, then intellectual consistency requires accepting that the majority of pro-Palestine marchers are not extremists despite the presence of antisemitic or Islamist elements. None of this makes bigots less contemptible. But the left reducing Unite the Kingdom to fascism is as lazy as the right reducing every pro-Palestine protest to antisemitism.
Britain’s metropolitan elites prefer a simpler story. I say this with some self-awareness: I live in the city, I go to members’ clubs, and I overhear political sociology in saunas. Let me say this: we have nothing to fear from ordinary people wanting to celebrate the country they belong to, just as we have nothing to fear from ordinary people marching against the suffering of civilians abroad. What we should fear is leaving either impulse to extremists: patriotism to Tommy Robinson, cranks and racial obsessives; solidarity with Palestinians to antisemites, Islamists and Jihadists.
Elite Britain has become too embarrassed by national identity and too nervous around mass protest unless it can place every marcher into a convenient box. The crowd at Unite the Kingdom, for better or worse, was not embarrassed. Nor are the Palestine marchers who keep returning to the streets. That is why both unsettle so many people, and why both are worth understanding rather than simply condemning.