On the ground with Tommy Robinson’s new supporters

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:09Today, on the ground from Stockport to central London, has the far right become a mass movement?

0:22A quick warning before we start, this episode contains some strong and offensive language.

0:34Do you know where people are going? I don't. Are you just following? I'm just following, yeah. It's an overcast Saturday morning at the very end of August, two weeks before Tommy Robinson is planning what he is calling the biggest free speech rally in British history. And I'm on some playing fields in Stockport, near where I live in Greater Manchester. Normally this is a park where kids play football, but today I'm surrounded by people in Union Jack outfits. One woman, her face painted in the red and white of a St George's flag, is holding a sign that says, not far right, just a concerned parent.

1:09Do you know where they're going? I won't tell the news reporter, no. OK. It gets old what I put on the news, don't you? Don't be silly. Why do you think I'm here to find out what's going on? Yeah, you're glad I'm open to tell the truth, bro. I followed the crowd down a footpath and through a gap in a fence towards some trees. No one seems to know where we're going. We clamber over branches and overgrown weeds. And then I realise where we are. We're at the back of a hotel near the bedrooms. Save our kids! And that's when the chants start. Save our kids! Save our kids! But these chants, they're not just about saving kids.

1:47Take it all by my country, fucker ball! Not too long ago, people didn't really say these things in public.

2:01Somebody's trying to lead a chant going pop the boats I guess he means pop the inflatable boats so they sink

2:13But something in England has changed dramatically of late The unsayable is being said And it's being shouted loudly and proudly in towns up and down the land and the voices only seem to be gaining in numbers. We're going to take you on a journey today from a local protest in Stockport to Tommy Robinson's rally in London to try to work out what is really going on and why. From The Guardian, I'm Helen Pidd. Today in Focus. They say they're not far right. But are they, unwittingly or not, part of a new far-right mass movement in Britain?

3:00Quite a lot of children here. There's a little child who's got butterfly wings on that's just past me. There's a dog wearing a St George's flag jumper. I saw one person in a t-shirt saying Enoch Powell was right. I'm outside a hotel I've walked past loads of times. It's been closed to the public for two years and has housed asylum seekers ever since. A lot of people here have a sentimental attachment to the hotel. which used to house a legendarily rough nightclub. It was also a place for weddings and family gatherings. When I get there, there's a group of people milling about. I get chatting to one of them and before long, there's a whole group of people wanting to talk to me.

3:38Can I ask you why you've decided to come down today? Same as everyone else, everyone's sick of it. Sick of what? The immigration, illegal immigration. I'm all for legal, but not for illegal because it costs the taxpayer too much. and this government have took£1.5 billion off the pensioners with the heating. You should look after your own before we start looking after others. Especially people who you don't know who they are, where they've come from, what they've done. Could I just ask you, where are you from? I'm from The Guardian. That tells everything. There you go. Can I just say one thing and I don't want to upset you and everything.

4:17No, you can say whatever you like. I will do. This guy has a lot to say for himself He's been leading a lot of the singing and is wearing a t-shirt that says I only kneel for the Queen the fallen and to take aim They're not refugees They are not refugees They're economic migrants There's an army that's come to this country You don't know who these people are I don't know who they are What's your argument? You give me your argument, I'll give you mine What they would say if they were here and I imagine they're not going to come out. They would say... Why don't they come out? Probably, I don't know.

4:52They're living in my country, so come out. They're not scared. No, they might feel a bit intimidated. By what? A 70-year-old fucking old Englishman. They're not intimidated. They're fighting age young men. They're not intimidated. But there's loads of families in this hotel. I live round here as well. I see them all here having... Yeah, I've got my family. Look, there's my daughter. I've got my families. They go to school. They scare me. So do the children in there, though. Are you telling me that they're scared of me and we're not scared of them? I've no idea. It's a war. We're a war. There's an army.

5:23A war over what, sorry? I don't quite understand what's the war. Islam and Christianity. This idea that the UK is in some kind of war against these people is something that comes up multiple times in conversation. The crowd grows and I talk to two women, a cleaner and a woman who works with children. The NHS is on its knees. The mental health system is on its knees. children with special educational needs they're not getting the help that they need and they deserve and why is that? because we're pouring billions upon billions upon billions into housing and keeping illegal immigrants here I don't want to be here really?

5:58why? my children don't even want to go to the park anymore they don't want to walk to the shop on their own what makes you think that it's the hotel residents that are doing it? because it is I mean I'm a woman as well I feel unsafe at night but I just don't see the correlation between people living in hotels and those crimes We don't know who they are. I work my bum off to pay for my mortgage and pay my children. These are getting free food. If they want to be here and they're genuinely fleeing a war-torn country, that is fine. But at the moment, they're not showing us any facts of the matter that that is the case.

6:29They're coming here, they're causing mayhem, and the fact of the matter is we as English people have had enough. We've had enough. But what would you... What are your argument to that? Well, I mean, I would definitely agree that the services in this country are massively underfunded. We all know what it's like to try and get a GP appointment and whatnot. What I would question is whether the people living in these hotels are the ones who have caused this massive underinvestment that goes back before the small boats crisis, doesn't it? It's successive governments. They're taking a large percentage of the budget to fund those things.

7:02So yes, it is getting took away from the things that we need most as a country. I'm not racist by any means. Like I say, if you want to come in here and embrace our culture, that are the way we live our lives, love the country, love the flag, do you know what I mean? Don't come here and spit on it and make out like we can't raise our flags. Of course we can. Every other country does it. So what is it that we are doing wrong? That's what I want to know. What are we doing wrong other than standing up for our rights? So what do you want to happen then? I think that they should all be deported. Stop the boat, send them home and apply through proper channels if you are genuinely...

7:33There aren't any proper channels. Well, there should be. I found out about the protest via one of my local Facebook groups. organised by a local electrician called Wayne Bentley. I recognise him from his profile picture. He's got dark hair and glasses and is wearing a black T-shirt that says, Save Our Kids. A bit like the protest down in Epping, this one seems to have been prompted by a series of incidents blamed on hotel residents. It was a man filming children at play on Goyte Valley Park in Bradbury approximately three weeks ago. This incident happened 300 yards away from my front door and that was the final straw.

8:07That's the reason why I organised this protest. somebody had to step up and do something to tell the people of Stockport that our children are not safe on the streets of Stockport and with that incident at the park I called Greater Manchester Police yesterday to ask them about it and they said that they were called to reports of a man acting suspiciously but that no crime was committed and that the man in question wasn't resident at the hotels. Is there not a danger that anybody who's dark skinned is being pinned as a potential asylum seeker? Sorry, I don't agree with that at all This is just one of three incidents that Wayne tells me about The second involves a man, a resident of the hotel he insists, who he claims was peering through the windows of a local primary school.

8:46Something else that Greater Manchester Police say simply didn't happen. There is, however, a grain of truth in the third alleged incident, which took place in a park on the other side of Stockport in July. A Sudanese man, a failed asylum seeker who was living in a hotel in Manchester, has been charged with attempting to abduct a 10-year-old girl. And that's what makes these things messy. A whole community of asylum seekers across the country, and increasingly anyone suspected of being one, are being blamed for the alleged actions of a tiny minority. And what would you say to people who say that, listen, you're scapegoating a load of people who are fleeing persecution and war and that there's always a few bad apples in any group and all that they're wanting is a safe life for themselves and their families?

9:32As that's the case, I wish them people good luck. I am sure that 99 % of illegal immigrants in this country came here genuinely for a better life, and I wish them good luck. But I will not cower when it comes to telling the people of this country that our children are unsafe walking the streets. And what do you want to happen in terms of the immigration system in the UK? We need to deport all illegal immigrants. They shouldn't be here. What about, I mean, they would say maybe that there's no legal routes. They've come from Afghanistan, Syria, countries that we, the British, have been involved in.

10:03that they're fleeing persecution. I, as an ex-soldier, take offence to the fact that I'm being called a Nazi for organising this protest. How can I, an ex-soldier, be a Nazi? These people that have fleed these countries, they are war-torned. I know that for a fact, being an ex-soldier, and I'm very sorry that they're in the predicament they're in. But I have to ask myself the question, why did they not stop at any one of the other European countries in transit to the UK? They came here because they know when they get here, they'll get benefits, they'll get hotels, They'll get clothes, they'll get houses, etc, etc, etc.

10:34They've come here because they know we're a soft torch. Did you support Labour before this? Before this I did. I voted Labour. I will never vote Labour again. Keir Starmer is a traitor. He's a traitor to our people.

10:51Wayne walks away, picks up a megaphone and starts the speeches. I'm struck by something. People say we're right wing, people say they're far right. We're not. We're not. No one I talk to considers themselves far right. We're white Englishmen. We're not far right. Right? We're not far right at all. Right? And anyone else who says that there are, could challenge them for God. They're even holding signs that say so. I think that these protests, I think people are looking at people as far right, racist, fascist, and that isn't the case. This is the woman I saw earlier, carrying a placard that reads, not far right, just a concerned parent.

11:31She's another cleaner, it turns out, and a mum of two kids. I've lived a peaceful life and kept myself to myself my whole life. I work, I've now got a couple of kids, and times are changing in this country, and I don't think it's for the better. And politically, how would you describe your politics? In all honesty, I've never ever been involved in politics. I've never felt the need to stand up and protest for anything. I kind of shocked myself that I'm here today, in all honesty, because I just go to work and look after my kids. That's it. There were 200 or so people at this protest. People from my community, who I queue up with at Morrison's, who go to the same exercise classes at my gym, who send their kids to my local schools.

12:12And if all of these people, people who are saying things like deport all asylum seekers, pop the boat, fuck off home, if these people say they aren't far right, then what are they? Do not let anyone come between this movement. To find out, I need to talk to Ben Quinn, the Guardian's in-house expert on the far right in Britain. Let's restore some pride in this country, because he's been lucky for years.

12:51Ben, welcome back to Today in Focus. You've been covering the story of these anti-immigration protests all year. And we last had you on the show not too long ago, actually, after the protests erupted at the Bell Hotel in Epping. And I was at my local hotel protest in Stockport very recently. And it really struck me that the things that people were saying, I really felt that they were things that they would not have said in public to a reporter maybe only a year ago. And it felt to me that there's been a really big shift. And all of these people that I met, they insisted that they were not far right, despite some of them calling for boats to be sunk and for all asylum seekers to be deported.

13:31So can you help us understand what is the far right? What defines it? So it's a contested term and notably people to whom the label is applied would reject it. They would say it's a pejorative term or some people might even argue it's a meaningless one that's used by critics on the left. But at the same time, advisors to the UK government have in the past come up with some definitions and they attach characteristics to the far right, such as, and I'm reading here, a narrative of racial and or cultural threat to a native group arising from perceived alien groups within a society. So that's a very wordy term, but you get the drift away from academic language like that.

14:14We're talking about groups and actually individuals whose views are more extreme than the centre-right, particularly concerning race, cultural and immigration. So some argue that there are those in the Conservative Party and Reform UK who've drifted into this space as well. And if these people that I met are saying that they're not far right, what are they? Yeah, they would say they are variously concerned local people motivated by illegitimate concerns. Yeah, concerned parents, definitely. Yeah, in some cases, such as in the case of far-right groups like Homeland, they've been prominent in the protests in Epping, outside the Barrow Hotel, with local activists running, for example, Facebook groups promoting the protest and actually trying to get a network of Facebook groups going to start other protests.

15:02They prefer to use the term nationalist. And it's actually interesting that newspapers like The Telegraph have started to use that term for homeland. And that's something the party is presumably quite happy with. And then there are those in these protests who are actually broadly left of center when it comes to a range of issues in the economy and the role of the state. They might even describe themselves as old labor or traditional labor voters, but they're particularly motivated by immigration and culture wars has had a resonance with them as well. Yeah, it struck me when I was talking to the organiser of the Stockport protest and asked about his politics and he said, oh, I always voted Labour but never again.

15:44To what extent do you think using the term far right helps us to understand and make sense of what's going on? So the term far right is a toxic term and that's why they do not like being described as far right. I struggle to remember anyone calling themselves far right. And in the history of this nation, it's practically a religion in terms of the recollections of the way Britain stood alone against fascism and against Nazism in the 1940s. And so when the National Front was in its heyday here, lots of people began breaking away from it and ending their association with it because the term Nazi and fascism was just so potent.

16:26And you had so many more people who were still alive who had, for example, fought in the Second World War. They'd been on the beaches of Normandy. And you still have people with that collective memory now, but we're a bit further away from it. But nevertheless, the term far right is a toxic term. it's a useful term to use in terms of describing in some cases who are influencing and promoting these certainly protests outside some of the asylum accommodation hotels. Do you think that there is also a way in which using that term is unhelpful to describe what's going on? Yes I think it is unhelpful if you ascribe it if you use it as a label for every every single person at those protests who are clearly not card-carrying members of Patriotic Alternative or Homeland.

17:13So in many cases, you have people who would say they're apolitical. Are they going to continue to be apolitical? That's an open question, but there are people who've turned out because they're really angry and concerned at events. I don't think it's immediately correct to call them far, right? It's not correct. And so it sounds like that there are groups, you mentioned Homeland and patriotic alternative who have been sort of maybe in the sidelines, in the shadows, encouraging these protests, but that the bulk of people who actually are turning up would not consider themselves to be a member of these groups or indeed any groups.

17:49So do you think that the groups are what we should be looking at or is it more complicated than that? It's more complicated than that, but the groups are part of it. And to actually reference a term coined by Joel Mulhall at Hope Not Hate. We're talking about a post-organisational movement. So yes, it is about parties, it is about groups, but it's also about activists, it's also about influencers, and it's about people just turning up at things. And we're talking a couple of days before what's expected to be a pretty big rally in central London organised by Tommy Robinson. He's calling it the biggest free speech rally in British history.

18:29Other people are fearing, I suppose, that it could be the biggest far-right gathering in British history. How important do you think he is as a figurehead for the far-right? Yeah, I mean, if you look at the polls and people like YouGov do poll the general public about what people in general think of Tommy Robinson, he's very well known, but he has low stock among the population as a whole. He's unpopular, but he has a core following among a particular demographic of people. And you've been to these protests as well. And you just hear people talking about Tommy and you hear people chanting Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, whether he's there or not.

19:08People regard him as somebody who is not a politician. And when I say he's really well thought of by people who go to those protests. And he's obviously somebody who's backed by quite powerful people. So is his stock high? Well, we're going to find out very soon at his Unite the Kingdom rally in London. And it seems that it's coming at a very opportune time for him after this summer of protests. He's obviously in line to make a lot of money. And I'm going to be at the rally on Saturday. How big do you think it's going to be? So it's certainly going to be tens of thousands of people. But clearly the people who've been monitoring Tommy Robinson for a while and in the little groups where people discuss whether they're going to rallies like this, the chatter is that there are larger numbers of people ready to go and ready to come than perhaps was the case of previous rallies.

20:05So the stars are aligned in some ways. And also Charlie Kirk has been killed in the US. Tommy Robinson has been using that as a way of mobilizing support. and trying to encourage people to come out. Well, perhaps we can catch up with you after the march to kind of assess how it all plays out and where this movement, if we can call it that, goes next. Thank you very much, Ben.

20:33Coming up, I head to London for Tommy Robinson's Unite the Kingdom rally.

20:58It's Saturday morning on the 13th of September. I arrive at Blackfriars Bridge in central London two and a half hours before the Unite the Kingdom march is due to start. And it's already clear that the rally is going to be enormous. People are streaming in from all angles as police helicopters hover overhead. Some are wearing St George's flags as capes. Others have hastily printed t-shirts bearing the face of Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated two days ago. Christian symbolism is everywhere. There are young men carrying large wooden crosses and lots of placards bearing the Latin slogan Deus Volt.

21:39It means God's will, and it's become a popular motto for white supremacist and Christian nationalist groups. The singing has already started.

21:54One man is wheeling a speaker, playing what sounds very much like an AI-generated diss track about Keir Starmer.