The recent “Unite the Kingdom” rally in London shows how easy it is for the radical right to mobilise a mass protest by repackaging a perennial issue as a moral panic. It did so by fusing together fears of migration and crime with a rising distrust in government.
There were calls for “remigration”, mass deportation and even the dissolution of parliament as well as violent clashes with police. There was also a level of confusion among some of the thousands of people who attended as to whether they were protesting for freedom of speech or lending their voices to a racist cause.
Although the scale of the demonstration was surprising to many, far-right activism has a long history in the UK.
