More than 1,600 officers from London's Metropolitan Police have gathered in the streets of the British capital. Thousands of Britons will participate in the"Unite the Kingdom" protest march on Saturday, which organizers and the British media are calling"possibly the largest far-right protest in the UK in decades."

The march is being organised by far-right figurehead Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson. He has been convicted several times in the past for libel and defamatory statements against a Syrian refugee. “Today London proudly defends one of our most fundamental rights: freedom of speech,” he wrote beforehand in a post on X. Participants are demonstrating not only for freedom of speech, but also against Islam and immigration.

Musk and Kirk

Thousands of British and English flags colored the streets around Waterloo Bridge blue, white, and red around 11 a.m. (local time). Even before the march toward Whitehall, the political center of the United Kingdom, got underway, people chanted anti-immigration slogans like"stop the boats" and "send them home." Several protesters also carried signs with photos of far-right influencer Charlie Kirk, who was shot dead Wednesday during a university debate in the US state of Utah.

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Robinson has used the assassination attempt on Kirk in recent days to call on even more people to descend on the capital. According to the far-right activist, more than a million Britons are expected to participate, although authorities believe this is a significant overestimate. Using helicopters and CCTV footage, London police have so far counted around 110,000 participants.

That afternoon, the protesters were addressed via video link by Elon Musk. The tech billionaire stated that the United Kingdom must end the Labour Party government with new elections. According to Musk—and US President Donald Trump—left-wing parties are responsible for political violence."There's so much violence on the left, with our friend Charlie Kirk being murdered in cold blood this week and people on the left openly celebrating it. The left is the side of murder and celebrates murder. If this continues, the violence will come to you too; you will have no choice. Whether you like it or not, the violence will come to you."

Steve Bannon, Trump's former adviser, was also scheduled to speak on Saturday. The same applies to Ant Middleton, a far-right television personality and a former member of the British special forces, and a member of the far-right German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

“Far-right threat”

Robinson claims he wants to "unite the kingdom" with his nationalist protest march, but the activist group Stand Up to Racism disagrees. They are organizing a smaller protest march simultaneously to"unite people against Tommy Robinson" and "welcome refugees." According to the Metropolitan Police, this"march against fascism" will draw approximately 5,000 protesters through the streets of London.

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Representatives of the British protest campaign "Women Against the Far Right" are also involved in the counter-protest. Among them is Labour MP Diane Abbott."The far right is a threat to society as a whole. Their initial targets—asylum seekers and Muslims—they've expanded to all migrants, Black people, and then to trade unionists, all religious minorities, and anti-racists," Abbott told The Guardian on Saturday.

The counter-protesters, like Robinson's crowd, are heading to Whitehall. With more than a thousand officers, supplemented by around 500 officers from other departments, police say they are prepared to keep the various groups apart. Barriers will be used to create a"sterile zone" between the marches. Some protesters from the"Unite the kingdom" protest reportedly tried to reach these zones to disrupt the other protest march."Officers were pelted with projectiles and had to use force to prevent their cordon from being breached," a statement from London Police said. At least nine people were arrested.