Tommy Robinson thanked a little-known US tech billionaire for funding his Unite the Kingdom (UTK) rally in London yesterday, during which tens of thousands of flag-waving nationalists flooded Whitehall and Parliament Square.
Robinson said Robert Shillman, 80, donated $100,000 to support the rally and said that “this event would not be happening” without him. At the first rally last September, Robinson was joined by Elon Musk via a video link.
Last year, The Observer revealed the financial connections between Shillman, Robinson and a series of other far-right activists around the world, including former reality TV star Katie Hopkins and the US conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who has close ties to the Trump administration. All were Shillman “fellows” at the rightwing online media outlet Rebel News, through which they were given funding by Shillman to become “citizen journalists”.
Shillman, who made his fortune through barcode tech firm Cognex, hosts a rightwing podcast called Life Lessons with Dr Bob. He is known as a key member of the “counter-jihad” movement and much of his philanthropy is focused on pro-Israel causes.
The UTK rally brought together several rightwing and far-right movements. Speakers, including Robinson, made repeated anti-Islam statements and promoted conspiracy theories about Muslims, with one saying it was not too late to “get Islam out of every official office in this country”.
Some attendees carried banners, placards and flags with statements including “Stop the boats” as well as Islamophobic and antisemitic statements. A neo-Nazi group calling itself White Vanguard carried a large banner reading: “End Zionist occupation! Stop white replacement”.
Thousands of police were deployed across London as tens of thousands more joined a pro-Palestine protest organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stand Up to Racism and the Stop the War Coalition. The Metropolitan police and politicians, including the prime minister, Keir Starmer, raised concerns about whether the event should go ahead in the light of recent antisemitism in London and previous arrests at the marches for stirring up racial hatred and supporting terrorist organisations. But organisers said that the comments “dangerously conflate Jewish people with the state of Israel and peaceful political protest with unconnected violent acts”.
Police officers put an arrested protester in a van during a Pro-Palestine march in London
Additional pressure was put on police officers as Chelsea played Manchester City in the FA Cup final at Wembley. At 4.30pm the Met said there had been 33 arrests across the protests as a whole but did not say what the offences were or which protests they were linked to. The turnout for the far-right rally was thought to be lower than September’s UTK march but crowds still packed Parliament Square and most of Whitehall up to Trafalgar Square.
Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, an anti-transgender influencer also known as Posie Parker, was met with huge applause when she called for the removal of Islam from classrooms and parliament.
The most common flags after union and St George’s were those of Iran’s western-backed Pahlavi regime, which was overthrown by Shia extremists in the 1979 revolution. A highly effective social media campaign encouraged supporters of Reza Pahlavi – the exiled son of the last shah, who is considered by many to be a potential future leader of Iran – to attend the rally.
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Referencing Robinson, who was at the time speaking on stage, Amir Mehran, 48, said: “We support him because Starmer supports the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC].” He said the Starmer government had failed to sanction the IRGC, an armed force set up to defend Iran’s theocratic regime. In fact, there have been a series of UK sanctions on the IRGC and key figures in recent months.
Unlike the first UTK rally, there were also several flags and banners supporting Restore Britain, the party started by former Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe. Robinson also led chants of “Rupert! Rupert! Rupert!”
Steve Fulton, a warehouse supervisor from Berkshire, said: “Rupert Lowe will win in 2029. He’s the only man who’s actually got integrity in politics.” He said Reform was “just morphing into the Tory party” and now had “half of Boris’s cabinet”.
Photographs by Carl Court/Getty Images, Thomas Krych/AP