I wouldn’t normally look at, let alone repost, X but this link was in The Grauniad’s live feed on the Unite the Kingdom march. It looks very nasty and Musk is whipping it up too.
It all looks pretty frightening to me.
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Who knew that appearing to be the Paramilitary Wing of the Labour Party wouldn’t endear the Met to folks who aren’t big Starmer fans?
9 arrests.
About the same as your average Glastonbury.
A lot fewer than I anticipated, to be honest.
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Early days, I’d suggest. I’m sure there will be many more in slower time.
You may be right, but that’s not the usual pattern.
On the other hand, the police collected a great deal of intel today. “We’re not running facial recognition technology live.” I bet they weren’t: they were collecting plenty of comparison data instead!
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Really? I’d have thought that was very common, pick up the worst on the spot but gather up more later so that you don’t tie up forces who will be required to maintain order. Perhaps one of our plod (or ex-plod) brethren could tell us a bit about tactics.
I see Eric Zemmour was at the rally talking about the great replacement theory that Charlie Kirk espoused. He said that ex-colonies are colonising the West.
Many were told they were not allowed to wear face masks, COVID is still around so sounds like a good idea, didn’t the government agree 
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How do you know when a Met spokesperson is lying? Their lips are moving.
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Quite a bit of disagreement as to how many attended. Met Police saying 100k, many on the Musk Propaganda Platform, err X, saying six million. Reality probably somewhere between as ever.
Musk stirring things as usual calling for a change of government.
Many commentators claiming the participants are not “far right” (though clearly the organisers are). Indeed I saw much the same observation by Nick Tyrone who had managed to not get himself thrown out of the Reform conference and observed that many of the Reform members were just ordinary people. But clearly quite politically naive people as many he talked to had little idea of Westminster politics. We see this with Reform councillors who are turning up to run councils with no clue whatsoever
You could claim this is positive, a groundwork of people who want a “common sense” approach to running things. But I’m not so sure. What I see is a large group who’s naievity makes then very vulnerable to manipulation.
The real problem is not only the rise of the right, it is that the left has no answer and it’s doing what the left always does best under pressure. Squabbling amongst itself.
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That’s what worries, and mean seriously worries, me. The hard right tide is rising across the US, across the UK and elsewhere, maybe even here and there’s no response from the moderate left. Starmer’s approach seems to be to move right too.
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Maybe today but tomorrow heaven knows.
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Yes but in doing so he’s allowing the debate to be shaped by the right. We’re discussing what they want - immigration as a problem rather than proper social reform and viewing immigrants as a resource.
In fact I don’t even know where the actual Left are. Some are sitting uncomfortably in Starter’s now right of centre party, some hanging on in the Greens, but zero chance of further development there, it briefly looked like Corbyn might attempt something but that has been a damp squib because he’s terminally useless and hasn’t changed.
The UK left always succumb to the same set of problems.
FWIW I think Starmer is doing a better job then he’s getting credit for. But he’s no natural politician and I think that the combination of Rayner and Mandelson could topple him.
How the press elsewhere in the world shows UK now
The “anti-immigration” headline…
Lot of two tier policing going on in the UK at the moment,nearly 1,000 people arrested last week in London for sitting peacefully holding a piece of paper,but only 25 arrested in that rabble yesterday.Met not using facial recognition yesterday,but used it at the Notting Hill Carnival.Bit of a pattern emerging.
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Not using facial recognition, lots and lots of police cameras so will be analysing it later no doubt. Why no Ai head count as there were a lot more than 100k
I think, as Corona hints, that the claim was no live facial recognition.
I agree, it’s ridiculous. But I blame Starmer, Cooper and now the latest anti-immigration, second generation immigrant woman, following in the footsteps of Braverman and Patel, that’s been parachuted into the HO to fix the non existent immigration problem. I think I’ll start a theead on UK immigration 
While it seems to me the Met has a poor track record and reputation, who’d be a police officer? One week you’re being ridiculed for arresting octogenarian vicars for holding a bit of cardboard, the next you’re facing off against thugs chucking bottles while Elon Musk cheers them on.
Musk should be proscribed as a one man terror organisation
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How often do I have to write this? The peaceful demonstrators arrested last week were lawfully arrested for supporting a proscribed organisation. Yesterday’s lot would have had to commit an offence other than being present at a demo to be arrested.
And no, I don’t think the proscription offence is justified.
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I think the definition of “supporting” needs a bit of work too Plod. 
Personally, from a position of total ignorance on the matter, I’d say the real supporters of terrorist organisations keep themselves well out of sight. Some of the people arrested couldn’t physically support themselves, let alone a terrorist organisation.
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