Counterfire editorial from this month’s freesheet

Saturday 16 May will be the next big test for the movements in solidarity with Palestine and against fascism.

Outrageously, the Metropolitan Police have given Tommy Robinson the heart of central London – the Strand, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall and Parliament Square – for his ‘Unite the Kingdom, Unite the West’ march.

This is despite the Palestine coalition applying for a route in central London for the annual demonstration commemorating the Nakba back in December. A demonstration with added significance in 2026 given the continuing genocide in Gaza, the pogroms against Palestinians in the West Bank, Israel’s new death penalty for Palestinian prisoners, and Israel’s occupation and ethnic cleansing of the south of Lebanon.

The Met’s decision exposes the real nature of two-tier policing. It shows a deliberate strategy by the state to use fascists to try break the Palestine movement.

It wouldn’t be the first time. In November 2023, then Home Secretary Suella Braverman directly mobilised fascists to confront the Palestine demonstration. There is a direct line to be drawn from that day as the first serious fascist mobilisation for some time through to the Southport riots, protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers and culminating in 200,000 at Tommy Robinson’s demonstration in September.

That demonstration featured calls for violence against Muslims, migrants and the left, a Palestine flag ripped up on the stage, people sieg-heiling and both anti-racists and the police violently assaulted.

Fascist organising and the state’s demonisation of Muslims and refugees has led to an exponential rise in Islamophobic hate crimes in the last year with at least 30 mosques attacked, two Sikh women raped in the West Midlands and a Muslim woman rammed with a car in south east London to name a few.

Where Palestine demonstrations face arbitrary restrictions from the route to length of the rally to whether megaphones, pots or pans can be used, the far right – with a proven track record of serious violence – are given free rein.

If allowed as planned, Tommy Robinson’s demonstration will be assembling in the same proximity to two mosques as synagogues are to Park Lane and the Israeli embassy which have been given as reasons to stop Palestine marches assembling in those areas.

This is even though there isn’t a shred of evidence that any of our over 30 Palestine National demonstrations have been a threat to Jewish people – thousands of whom have been a part of every demonstration.

Meanwhile, Danny Tommo, right-hand man of Tommy Robinson, posted a video saying ‘We are not coming to wave flags… We know what needs to be done… So make no mistake – on 16th of May, things change.’

When Stop the War’s John Rees described the Met’s decision as ‘the state and centre aid[ing] the fascists’, Tommy Robinson responded, ‘That’s correct , London is ours on may 16th [sic]’.

There can be no question that fascists will be further emboldened to terrorise Muslims if they have uncontested control of London streets on 16 May.

The state is playing a dangerous game and risks opening up Pandora’s Box. Historically, fascism has only been able to take root and come to power with the support of ruling classes afraid of the left.

But we have shown that we have the ability to stop them. Despite the concerted campaign to criminalise the Palestine movement for two and a half years, it has continued to mobilise hundreds of thousands of people as a constant thorn in the government’s side.

Last month’s Together Against the Far Right demonstration called by a broad alliance of civil society organisations brought half a million people onto the streets – more than double the size of Tommy’s last demo and the biggest since last year’s Nakba Day demonstration.

It was mass protests or the preparation for them that put a stop to the 2024 riots and which twice stopped fascist UKIP marching through Tower Hamlets.

We have to use the coming weeks to launch a massive campaign to push back the police decision and in the process spread the word in every part of the country to flood the streets of London on 16 May with the majority who oppose fascism, oppose war and genocide.

Follow @stwuk for campaign updates and details on the 16 May demo

From this month’s Counterfire freesheet