Pete Webster reports on the fascist leader fleeing and the kind of movement we need to confront and defeat the far right

Tommy Robinson, fascist and self-styled ‘people’s champion’, has fled the country while on bail after being arrested on Saturday evening. He is facing charges of contempt of court, for screening a libellous documentary he was ordered not to at his demonstration in Trafalgar Square.

Saturday’s demonstration saw a scarily large crowd of 20-30k, led by neo-Nazis and sympathisers responding to the fascist Tommy Robinson’s call to “Unite the Kingdom”. The march assembled outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London and ended in Trafalgar Square for a rally which was a sea of Union Jacks – and a good few Israeli ones too. It was a demonstration fuelled by state-sponsored Islamophobia from our political elite and hostility to the Palestinian movement.

His march had originally been called to oppose the Trans Pride parade that should have culminated in the Square but was switched to Hyde Park after Labour’s Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, approved the use of the Square for Robinson’s reactionary rabble, giving them unnecessary credibility.

Although Robinson fleeing might disrupt the momentum of the far right on the streets following his last two mobilisations, the size of Saturday’s demo (which Robinson claimed as 100k) will have been a boost for the fascist core at the heart of the movement, and a wider layer of far-right activists and disillusioned people being pulled into racist and Islamophobic scapegoating.

This must be a wake-up call to all of us on the left and in the Palestinian movement. An emboldened far right will be more confident to attack Palestine protests, refugee accommodation sites and Muslims on the streets. They will have a sense of support for their racist, divisive ideas.

The demonstration did not go unchallenged. A counter-demonstration called by Stand Up To Racism saw an estimated 5,000 people including anti-racists, trade unionists and trans activists on coaches from around the country march to oppose Tommy Robinson. Some wore keffiyehs and carried Palestinian flags recognising that, in the words of Stop the War Coalition’s Alex Kenny, Tommy Robinson’s demonstration “…is a pro-Israeli march. It is a march in support of genocide!”

While it was comforting to see a wide range of trade union and local banners from far afield, the counter-demonstration was outnumbered. Though it was bigger than the previous one in June, serious questions are raised for the whole of the left about the strategy we need to build the kind of movement capable of resisting, confronting and defeating the far right.

That urgent task starts today to ensure that the far right is driven off of our streets. The Islamophobia that they principally organise around must be confronted. Our movement has to be the front line of defence for refugees who are largely displaced by ongoing imperialist wars, economic plundering and capitalist-driven climate change.

The left has to create a stronger avenue of struggle against a neoliberal government responsible for the deteriorating conditions of millions of people and cut off the growing base of support for far-right ideas that seek to divert the blame onto refugees, Muslims and LGBT people.

It also must be a united front in which the Palestine movement is a central part. The genocide in Gaza is racism manifest. It’s little surprise that Tommy Robinson and his supporters are vocal Zionists. As Ben Jamal of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, said on the platform at Saturday’s counter-demonstration, “there is no coherent struggle against racism…that does not have support for the Palestinian struggle against racist oppression at its heart and centre!”

When hundreds of thousands of people have marched consistently for nine months against the genocide in Gaza, and Tommy Robinson has mobilised explicitly against the Palestine movement, then the latter has to be a central force in mobilising to oppose the fascists and their supporters.

Saturday’s counter-demonstration was supported by Stop the War, major trade unions and other left organisations (including Counterfire) and we need to build a broad united front against racism, Islamophobia, Zionism and Imperialism. The task of building such a movement is an urgent one for all of us.

That is why it is important to ensure the next national demonstration for Palestine on Saturday 3 August is huge and continues to demand that Starmer and the Labour Government stop arming Israel now, and back an immediate and permanent ceasefire that will allow desperately need humanitarian aid into Gaza. And at the demonstration, we must make the case that everyone that mobilises for Palestine must be part of the fight against Tommy Robinson.