Coffee Space

Reason to Attend

For me personally, it was an expression of multiple ideas:

• A sense of national pride and unity. It’s not often that such an opportunity presents itself. For the Queen’s coronation, I believe there were some 200k people in attendance - but we’re talking about something far bigger.
• A message of unhappiness to the political elites. The UK is clearly in decline, but there is no acknowledgement of the matter. The current Labour government will not accept any negative words about the UK, nor will they take any responsibility.
• A rebuttal to a decline in freedom of speech. Given the erosion with ideas such as ‘non-crime hate incidents’, the online safety act, the idea of ‘hate crime’ itself, two-tier sentencing guidelines (if you are considered a minority then you get a reduced sentence), the malicious communications act (makes it illegal in England and Wales to “send or deliver letters or other articles for the purpose of causing distress or anxiety”), the push by the muslim council of Britain to introduce Islamophobia laws, government issued ID cards (which is a Tony Blair brain fart from 2006 which will curve civil liberties) - the list is endless.
• A rejection of infinite unchecked immigration into the UK, despite numerous social issues, resource constraints, backlash from the public for the last 20 years and an obvious failure to introduce economic growth.

Of course, people were there for different reasons. Some were there to fight, some were there as support for friends - but I think anybody honest would generally say that they took pride in the UK, and there was a feeling that there were better times in the recent past.

Attendance

There have been many figures given, but generally the media agree that there were between 110k and 150k people in attendance, because that is the figure given by the Met police.

There was insufficient space to fit them all in Whitehall and Parliament Square, with crowds backing up onto Bridge Street and Westminster Bridge.

A number of people turned off onto Victoria Embankment to get out of the crowds which was understandable.

Below is a video published by the Guardian:

You can make a judgement for yourself. Given that the video doesn’t even include everybody that attended, I would be happy to claim that there were in excess of 500k people in attendance.

Why, then, would the mainstream media and Met police lie about numbers? In 2024, there were an estimated 170,500 FTE police officers in the entire UK, including admin staff, etc. In 2025, there were an estimated 147,300 military personnel in the entire UK, again including support staff, etc. That would total 317,800. Assuming that half are actually deployable, you have a combined force of 158,900. If there were 500k people at the rally, this would represent 3x the number of people of all combined forces. When considering the rule of thumb ratio for battle engagement:

A widely cited rule of thumb is the 3 ratio, which suggests that an attacking force should have three times the strength of a defending force to successfully assault a prepared position.

This ratio is based on a 1986 survey of 600 land battles from 1600 to 1973 by the U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency, which found that attackers with a 3 advantage succeeded 74% of the time.

Maybe I am wrong, but if I were a tactical man, my palms would have been sweaty at such a show of force.

Clashes

There were a few bad apples, as there is with any large gathering. For a large gathering with zero barrier to entry, it was remarkably peaceful.

However, we then saw large crowds ignore police directions, turning left up Horse Guards Avenue, Whitehall Place, Northumberland Avenue and Craven Street in an effort to get into Whitehall, including into sterile areas and areas occupied by those taking part in the Stand Up To Racism protest.

There were unfortunately far too many people, and several bottlenecks. I personally very almost ended up as one of these people, as I grew concerned about Westminster Bridge’s ability to hold so many people. After some turned away, I decided to wait and got across the bridge.

When officers intervened to block their path they were assaulted with kicks and punches. Bottles, flares and other projectiles were also thrown and concerted attempts to get past barriers were made.

Apparently, the police charged the rally front, attempting to force them back where there was no space. I have seen videos floating around to confirm this. I have heard but cannot confirm that several of the arrests made were the counter protestors.

At least one 24 arrested is supposed to be a counter-protestor. For each counter-protestor (assuming 5000, one arrest), 0.02% of them were arrested. For the rally goers (assuming 110,000, 23 arrests), 0.02% of them were arrested. I can’t find a report of violent offences per day in London, but it’s not unthinkable to believe that it may have been safer on the streets that usual.

Finally

The one real complaint I have is that no bins or toilets were provided, and as a result, people pissed up every wall en route in the capital, and litter overflowed across the streets. I believe London council are partly to blame, but also nobody really expected to have the numbers that we had. There is no need to leave our capital in such a state.

I believe I will attend the next event proposed for next year, and I have people already asking to join this time.