Politics
Tommy Robinson’s far-right rally was a massive flop
In 2025, Tommy Robinson surprised many by orchestrating the largest far-right rally this country had seen in decades. Robinson reacted to this as you would expect — by selling advertising space and merchandise. We imagine Robinson made good money off his fans because he always does, but the future prospects of his fash-for-cash operation are in serious doubt:
On the left the AI. — Gyll King Post Skip Diplomacy (@GyllKing) May 16, 2026
On the right the reality.
Tommy’s March was a flop.
Smaller than last year. pic.twitter.com/geBlXYWidA
A dying movement
Videos showed the crowd from different angles:
Tommy Robinson claims he's seen the aerial footage and "millions" attended his march.
Here's the main segment of their evening.
You be the judge. — smile2jannah (@smile2jannah) May 16, 2026
CNBC TV show footage of the far right march in London
They've just about filled Parliament square
With barely anyone between Parliament square and Trafalgar square On the cover image, look at the bottom, there's a giant screen, with pretty much no one to watch it – and… pic.twitter.com/AiZbNTwI4a
— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) May 16, 2026
I don't know but you can get anywhere between 10-15k in Parliament square depending on how squished up they are to one another
— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) May 16, 2026
Speaking on the number of attendees, Nick Lowles of Hope not Hate said:
I think there were between 50,000-60,000 on the Unite the Kingdom demo, way down on last September’s event.
It also felt low energy. There was a buzz about September, probably because the size of it caught people by surprise. Expectations were higher now and the event didn’t really live up to it.
The banning of 11 overseas speakers had a real impact on the demo. It distracted the organisers in the final week and the calibre of those who filled their spots were poor.
Last September, Elon Musk both helped build the demo and spoke. His absence was noticeable this time.
Lowles also said that Robinson:
will claim millions – but he will be lying.
More importantly though, and unlike last September, we have stood up to his narrative of division and hate. Britain is a better place than Lennon portrays. He failed, we are stronger than him
Today’s Unite the Kingdom rally will most likely be viewed as a disappointment by the organisers.
Low turnout, low energy, and lack of high profile speakers raises questions on how Lennon can continue these near-identical demos without losing momentum.https://t.co/vIZf1oMZhM
— HOPE not hate (@hopenothate) May 16, 2026
Commenter Mukhtar, meanwhile, noted the following:
Tommy Robinson asked for money to hire a helicopter for aerial footage so nobody could “lie about the numbers.” He claimed the helicopter had been booked four days earlier.
Guess what? No helicopter footage was used. Instead, he used clips from a TikTok livestream filmed by someone who climbed onto the roof of a building.
Embarrassing
This year’s event was such a mess that even right-wingers were embarrassed by it:
Richard here describing how he’s had to walk through urine as the drunken yobs at the UTK rally are pissing all over the streets of London
He’s had enough
And he’s a UTK supporter. https://t.co/O1zV40L9xz
— Stop The Bollocks with Mirabel (@MirabelTweets1) May 16, 2026
It’s not hard to see why given the behaviour on display:
— The Saviour (@TheSaviour) May 16, 2026
Urinate the kingdom https://t.co/Lf73Y6CnQ4
— ابا الهراء
Of course, we have no sympathy for right-wingers who are fine with the blatant racism but draw the line at ungentlemanly behaviour. Because make no mistake — this was a hardcore racist affair:
the "entertainment" at Tommy Robinson low turn out unite the kingdom event..
disgusting, always is about hate nothing about unite the country at all pic.twitter.com/CfKL0VO1uM
— Just Dave now (@justdavenow89) May 16, 2026
The police would’ve arrested a pro-Palestine protester if they had held up a placard saying the exact same thing about Judaism. pic.twitter.com/FOVyR9XbC3
— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) May 16, 2026
It’s also clear from footage that some of these degenerates are teaching their kids to be as vile as they are:
I'm trying to imagine Muslim kids chanting something similar about the Jewish or Christian faiths at a rally in London. The Prevent folks, counter-terrorism police, the entire British media would be all over the story, asking why Muslims are so extreme & brainwashing their kids. https://t.co/mNDYNqtr35
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) May 17, 2026
This sort of brainwashing has real-life impacts, as we’ve seen:
I don’t recall wall to wall media coverage and politician outrage about this incident
Maybe if the Iranian Kurdish man had been an ambulance …… https://t.co/Q5VBUeI9YV
— Stop The Bollocks with Mirabel (@MirabelTweets1) March 23, 2026
Tommy Robinson’s limp lineup
As we reported, Robinson had problems getting a lineup of speakers for this years event. We’re not sure what this says about the British far-right, but Robinson heavily relied on foreign speakers. The problem is the government banned several of them from entering the UK because they’re hate mongers who wanted to stir up trouble.
As we reported on 15 January, banned speaker Eva Vlaardingerbroek:
is part of Generation Remigration, which is a group that advocates for – you guessed it – ‘remigration’.
Additionally:
Remigration is built on the idea that people of different ethnicities cannot live peacefully together. This is quite obviously what you would describe as ‘racist’. In years gone by, people on the far right would try to provide some sort of cover to claim ‘we’re not racist‘. Clearly, there is no such cover here.
Commenting on the speakers who did attend this year’s event, Mukhtar said that Robinson:
He also claimed celebrities would attend and give speeches. In the end, they had that washed-up actor Tamer Hassan on Zoom. Sharon Osbourne was a no-show, and even Katie Hopkins couldn’t be bothered to turn up, so she appeared on Zoom too.
When Starmer blocked foreign far-right agitators from entering the UK, Tommy tweeted that American congressmen were coming and dared him to block them. No American congressmen attended.
The event also included some of the worst musical performances of all time:
I must insist that you watch this from beginning to end. It’s beyond fucking awful and unintentionally hilarious. pic.twitter.com/2QWJK6Utl4
— Moog (@a_toots) May 16, 2026
Icky Rourke. pic.twitter.com/hs4Gti5f2X
— Jim Nauseum 2.0 (@jim_nauseum2) May 16, 2026
It’s hard to imagine anyone who was subjected to this racket making an effort to return next year — not when they can simply be racist at home.
Imported hatred
What the rally lacked in numbers and entertainment, it made up for in imported Yank nonsense:
I just walked past that lot. — richard bacon (@richardpbacon) May 16, 2026
It is an out and out racist march.
It’s gross to be anywhere near.
Anyone who says this is normal people expressing normal sentiments isn’t normal. https://t.co/LOUDo1TkNI
It’s not for nothing that we’re starting to see American-style far-right Christian nonsense in Britain. As Amnesty reported, US billionaires are paying for all this:
Three reasons why the "Unite the Kingdom" rally this Saturday is worse than you think…@ElonMusk a little something for you at the end. pic.twitter.com/pkrOb7OZ1L
— Amnesty UK (@AmnestyUK) May 14, 2026
As Amnesty said in the video:
the Unite the Kingdom march this Saturday is funded by billionaires with dangerous anti-rights agendas. Ever heard of Robert Shillman? He’s a US tech billionaire who funds Islamophobic figures from across the globe like Katie Hopkins and Geert Wilders, as well as Tommy Robinson. He dug deep this year and has donated 100,000 bucks to make this rally happen.
What went wrong?
Robinson and folks like him have spent the past few years riling up their followers with hardcore Islamophobia and bullshit. If you attended the Unite the Kingdom march in 2025, you might have believed the country was on the edge of imminent collapse, and that patriots were ready to overthrow the government. The problem with operating at that level of intensity is that when nothing actually happens, people start to drift off.
Tommy Robinson is good talking a big game, but he’s also notorious for rinsing his fans for everything they’ve got:
Before his 'Unite The Kingdom' Rally last year Tommy Robinson promoted a linked crypto coin called UTK.
If you had invested £1000 then it would now be worth around just £2.50.
Yet today he is out again pushing a 'trading strategy' that says no one has lost any money. pic.twitter.com/CM8sGlsRVF
— UNN (@UnityNewsNet) January 26, 2026
A recent example was when he claimed ISIS had made him a priority target — using the situation to beg for donations and then dropping the story a few weeks later:
Is he….. seeking a safe country while unable to financially support himself?
Well, well, well. https://t.co/EPe2yJ6seY
— Ginger Tucci (@Ginger_Tucci) February 14, 2026
There’s also Unite the Kingdom itself, as Lowles noted:
More worryingly for Stephen Lennon, his supporters are beginning to see through his money making exercise. He’s admitted to receiving $300,000 from two people for the demo, plus the hundreds of thousands he raised from supporters. On top of that were all the merchandise, bucket collections etc..
Robinson isn’t capable of holding a movement like this together because he lacks the ideological zeal of an Adolf Hitler. He might genuinely hate Muslims, but he doesn’t hate them as much as he loves money, and his bank balance always come first.
Because of all this, Robinson hasn’t just failed to grow his movement; he’s actively shrunk it. And the people who are left are increasingly divorced from reality:
But… he did get away with it https://t.co/JjAtOOnDhM
— Alistair's Great Tweets (@YesitsAlistair) May 16, 2026
Tommy Robinson — the downfall
Tommy Robinson was poised to grow the British far-right into a viable and terrifying movement. Instead, he pissed it up the wall like lukewarm Stella.
At this point, this movement seems doomed to fade away. And the smaller it becomes, the more repellant it will be to the majority of people watching.
Featured image via Getty Images
By Willem Moore
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