The Two Faces of Britain
‘Division’ is one of those overused wank-words governments employ to tell you whose side of the debate you should find yourself on. In Britain, towns increasingly split along religious fault lines, migrants who refuse either to follow our laws or integrate, and grooming gangs that target white, working-class girls, calling them “white slags”, are euphemised as “diversity”. The native British people meanwhile who dare to notice them, are increasingly referred to as “divisive”.
So it played out predictably on the streets of London this weekend, as our capital hosted two very different demonstrations. On one side stood the Nakba Day protest, a commemoration of the 1948 displacement of Palestinians. In reality, this was little more than the ongoing ‘pro-Palestine’ marches that have dogged the streets of Britain for the last few years. On the other side was Tommy Robinson’s latest “Unite the Kingdom” rally, focussing on cultural cohesion, the dangers of mass immigration, and a stand against the erosion of British identity. The contrast in both appearance and treatment from the authorities could scarcely have been more glaring.
In the days leading up to the event, the Home Office moved aggressively to disrupt the Unite the Kingdom march. Eleven conservative speakers from overseas were banned from entering Britain on vague “public order” grounds, with, one has to say, impressive and uncustomary speed. These included the Dutch commentator, Eva Vlaardingerbroek, whose crime appears to be her criticism of Keir Starmer, the Polish MEP and opponent of illegal immigration, Dominik Tarczyński, as well as Rebel News journalist, Ezra Levant. While said speakers might be considered ‘racy’ outside of BBC / Guardian dinner-party circles, they’re hardly in the same league as the former Al Qaeda leaders Starmer is happy to host in Downing Street.
Alongside the bans, security was ramped up from the get-go. While content to kneel, turn a blind eye, or protect the hate marches from those with the audacity to “look openly Jewish”, suddenly the Old Bill had discovered the meaning of “the full force of the law”. Live facial recognition cameras were rolled out specifically for UTK - technology the Metropolitan Police has been strikingly reluctant to deploy against the hate marches (though, in fairness, what’s the point when the protesters routinely wear masks anyway?). More than 4,000 officers were drafted in, supported by drones, helicopters, horses, dogs and armoured vehicles.
After years of shrugging off “Globalise the Intifada” and “Death to Jews”, the Crown Prosecution Service mysteriously issued new legal guidance on the use of “offensive banners, slogans, chants or symbols”:
If you didn’t know better, you’d swear the authorities had picked a side.
One set of protesters it wanted to see.
One set, it did its best to ignore.
As is so often the case, however, the clue is in the name. Saturday’s main demonstration was called Unite The Kingdom. The crowd came from all walks of life: working-class families, middle England, ordinary Brits who rightly believe their country’s rapid demographic and cultural transformation has been imposed without their consent. The other side? “Pro-Palestine” - and therefore “anti-Israel”, “anti-Zionism”, “anti-Jew”; routinely masked, aggressively hostile, and as usual shouting charming little slogans such as “Shoot him in the neck like Charlie Kirk”.
With characteristic sanctimony, Prime Minister Starmer declared his championing of peaceful protest, while accusing the UTK organisers of “peddling hatred and division”. Desperate to instruct the plebs in what they were permitted to think, he insisted they didn’t “speak for the decent, fair, respectful Britain” he knew. Sir Keir took to X with the zeal of an Archbishop and the authority of a milk-monitor. If the Starmer administration teaches us anything, it is surely the age-old maxim: never trust anyone whose eyes light up at the sight of a clipboard and a red pen.
Yet even with every obstacle placed in their path: the foreign bans, the selective surveillance, the flooding of central London with police, and open provocations by counter protesters such as Led By Donkeys, who blasted “immigration makes Britain brilliant” propaganda into the crowd, the result was telling. The Met Police’s own verdict was clear: the Unite the Kingdom rally “proceeded largely without any significant incident.” Across both events, arrests totalled 43. Several were for outstanding warrants. A handful of officers were assaulted. There were no stabbings, no mass violence, no muggings, no sexual assault. Despite the heavy-handed policing and deliberate wind-ups, the predicted (and longed for) “far-right threat” failed to materialise.
This pattern is not new. At last year’s Unite the Kingdom rally, there was only 25 arrests - an astonishingly low rate, considering police estimates of 100-150,000 attendees (and those numbers are disputed as being considerably on the low side). By contrast, other large gatherings tell a different story. Last year’s Notting Hill Carnival racked up 528 arrests, dozens of assaults on officers, and multiple stabbings. Palestine Action protests managed 890 arrests in September 2025, while Just Stop Oil actions have produced hundreds of arrests on single days. And yet only one side of the divide faces foreign-speaker bans, months of ministerial briefings framing them as a danger to the “soul of the country,” and the full weight of the government machine.
There is a reason for this.
The government knows precisely whom it fears: ordinary, decent working- and middle-class Brits, who dare to think the wrong thoughts about immigration and consistently vote ‘the wrong way’. By attempting to provoke the very disorder it could then condemn and smear, the government continues to use draconian powers to suppress the “far-right thugs” who object to the 30-year invasion it neither wanted nor consented to. It failed. Even with reduced turnout from the previous event, the message from the streets was unmistakable: the double standard is now visible to anyone willing to look.
For a Prime Minister whose approval ratings have collapsed and whose party is reeling from poor local election results, the political temptation is obvious - distract from failures on borders, integration, crime and public trust by painting patriotic concern as the real threat to social cohesion. But the script, written so carefully in advance, has been exposed. In Starmer’s Britain, two-tier policing is not an unfortunate side-effect. It is deliberate policy.
The real division on Saturday was not just the marchers. It was best observed between the governing class which lectures endlessly about unity while practising division, and the British public that can see the hypocrisy with its own eyes. The Unite the Kingdom demonstrators refused to play their allotted role. That, more than anything, is what the authorities cannot forgive.
For my money, UTK proved three things:
Britain is not done, no matter how much Cassandras like myself keep wailing that it is.
Tommy Robinson deserves a knighthood for services to Britain, though I suspect he’s about as likely to get one as I am for services to literature.
“Keir Starmer’s a Wanker” ought to be released as a single, or at the very least our entry for Eurovision next year
Saturday’s marches clearly demarcated the two faces of Britain. One is open, loving, and unifying (while honest about the threats we face), the other is masked, hateful, and has murder in its heart. Britain needs to choose the former, even though our overlords do everything they can to embolden the latter.
Frank Haviland is the Editor of The New Conservative, and the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West.
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Thanks for writing this Frank.
I was there with my son and elderly friend. Everyone was friendly, patient (we waited for 90 minutes before it started). Plenty of Israel flags. Persian flags. People came from Glasgow and north Wales and all over the UK. A young man we befriended came from Chelmsford, another High Wycombe.
My favourite Andrew Bridgen spoke too. We are so pleased to have made the effort.
Interestingly, on the way back to Worthing, there were two young girls - early 20s with their black and white teatowels. As a mother, their ignorance is astonishing and an insult to all those women who are subjugated by the Ideology they support.
Good article. Which side is the good one and which one is the bad one can be seen in the picture you used. The choice to support the islamists' side is inexcusable and unforgivable. The gruesome establishment's inversion of morality and legality must be rejected at the ballot box.