On a big screen yards from Downing Street, Marco Rubio was midway through a paean to western civilisation when the sound went down, and not for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know who you are mate but I agree with you,\u201d shouted a woman, draped like so many of those on the self-styled \u201cUnite the Kingdom\u201d march in the flag of St George and soaking up the atmosphere at what has emerged as the nearest thing to a far-right Glastonbury.<\/p>\n
As with the praise lavished by speakers on Donald Trump, the inclusion of a recording of the US secretary of state\u2019s recent address to the Munich security conference appeared designed to catch the eye of would-be backers in the US and perhaps even in the White House itself.<\/p>\n
Yet, if last year\u2019s rally \u2013 also organised by Tommy Robinson<\/a> \u2013 took many by surprise for its sheer size and was by some margin the biggest far right event in British history, this year\u2019s was a distinctly lower energy one.<\/p>\n One factor may have been the UK government\u2019s blocking of 11 international activists who were due to speak, but there was a flatness to this year\u2019s speeches and an absence of last year\u2019s equivalent of a rabbit out of the hat when Elon Musk appeared via video link.<\/p>\n Far-right agitator Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known by his pseudonym Tommy Robinson, speaking at the rally in London. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth\/AP<\/p>\n As ever for Robinson, a tanned lover of frequent sun holidays and veteran of the far right whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, it was often about money. As he introduced a range of speakers from a stage in Parliament Square, he claimed to have raised more than $300,000 (\u00a3225,000) from two US conservative donors he had met on a recent US trip.<\/p>\n The push for support continued on Saturday as he repeatedly urged supporters to take out their phones and scan a QR code in order to share their details with his operation, now a burgeoning multimedia enterprise flogging merchandise on the back of a platform that has increasingly added Christian nationalism to its anti-Islam message.<\/p>\n In the crowd, who had marched through Trafalgar Square and Whitehall after gathering earlier at London\u2019s Euston Station, the usual tribes from past Robinson bandwagons such as the English Defence League were there. Largely male and white, it included the Fred Perry-clad football casuals, men in clothing emblazoned with various iterations of \u201cPatriots\u201d and various extremely online young men, often seemingly alone, in Maga hats.<\/p>\n Continuing a theme from last year too, Christian iconography was particularly visible. Marchers had earlier helped themselves to piles of large wooden crosses left out on the route while evangelical preachers joined Robinson on stage and Christian activists in the crowd handed out free copies of leaflets and books.<\/p>\n Tommy Robinson flanked by some of his supporters. Photograph: Hugo Philpott\/UPI\/ShutterstockA man enjoys a drink and a picnic as he listens to the speeches at Parliament Square. Photograph: Andy Barton\/SOPA Images\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n But also present \u2013 and as much as some may wish this was not the case \u2013 were the politically unaffiliated as well as many families with groups of children.<\/p>\n Mingling in the crowd the Guardian spoke to those who simply said they were there out of curiosity, or out of a vague sense of community with others who felt \u201csilenced\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve just come along because something feels wrong in the country,\u201d said a man who identified himself as a small business owner in south London.<\/p>\n Yet new tribes were also growing in number. Some carried flags or wore the emblem of Restore Britain \u2013 the party set up by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe. Robinson himself, having previously been linked to Advance UK party, encouraged his supporters to get involved in politics and smiled and said \u201cI\u2019m hearing Restore\u201d as those close to the main stage chanted \u201cRupert, Rupert\u201d.<\/p>\n But while the usual flags of St George and union jacks flew over the crowd, two others in particular seemed more prominent than ever.<\/p>\n They were the flag of Israel \u2013 hoisted by long-term Robinson supporters but also by groups with T-shirts saying things such as \u201cJews for Tommy\u201d \u2013 and the flag of Persia, or pre-revolutionary Iran, with a golden lion and sun at its centre.<\/p>\n \u201cFor years I have been trying to warn the British people about the dangers of Islam,\u201d said Kamran Soltani, pushing a bike with photographs of the last Shah of Iran and his exiled son, and who said his own father had been a general in the shah\u2019s army and was executed after the Islamic revolution. Like some British Iranians \u2013 including those on what were said to have been eight coaches of Iranians who travelled from Manchester \u2013 he had found common cause with Robinson.<\/p>\n Others too were out and prouder than ever in a different way. Explicitly white nationalist groups such as White Vanguard were present with banners that appeared to meet with no opposition from stewards. \u201cEnd Zionist Occupation of Britain, Stop White Replacement,\u201d said one.<\/p>\n Other extreme rightwingers in the crowd included Mark Collett, the co-founder of Patriotic Alternative, and Sam Melia, an activist from the group who was released from prison last year after serving time for inciting racial hatred<\/a>. They were later happy to claim they had handed out thousands of leaflets.<\/p>\n \u201cThere seems to have been a lot of very hardline little far right and fascist groups there who were operating quite openly,\u201d observed Nick Lowles, chief executive of the anti-fascist organisation Hope Not Hate.<\/p>\n \u201cIt gives them a whole new audience. Many of these groups would not get to a thousand people at events, so for them it\u2019s great promotion.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet, overall, Lowles suggested that this year\u2019s event will have been a disappointment to Robinson. It appeared to have been both smaller than last year and also lacking in high profile speakers.<\/p>\n At one point, there was consternation when Led by Donkeys, a group born out of anti-Brexit activism, snuck a screen into the rally<\/a>, which blasted out the message that \u201cImmigration is great\u201d to the sound of Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. The faces of George Michael and other celebrated sons and daughters of immigrant families flashed on to the screen as the police were forced to gather around the vehicle and protect it from angry marchers.<\/p>\n