‘This turned into the Tommy Robinson show’: Cracks begin to appear after far-right unites with Ukip for Brexit march

Revolutions, it has been said, do not generally begin on Sundays. People have to be up for work the next morning.

Perhaps something similar applies to right-wing political rallies. It could explain why Sunday’s so-called Brexit betrayal march – a joint Ukip and Tommy Robinson demonstration, which claimed to speak for the 17.4 million people who voted leave in 2016 – attracted a crowd of little more than 2,000 people to Whitehall in central London.

Robinson – the English Defence League founder who was considered such a star turn he spoke twice at the event – called the gathering a “beautiful” sight.

But even he may have cringed at the lack of numbers because nearby, separated by a thick police presence, a 10,000-strong anti-Fascist rally dwarfed his own.

“It may have been better on a Saturday,” mused one demonstrator, driver Steven Woods, outside the nearby St Stephen’s Tavern pub. “People like to have a pint when they come to something like this. They like to make a day or a weekend of it.”

The rally was ostensibly organised to demand that Theresa May abandon her proposed EU withdrawal deal and, instead, walk away from Europe without any agreement. “Brexit means exit,” was the chant of choice for the day. “WTO Rules!” demanded one sign.

But, more than that, it seems, it was an apparent attempt to unite the whole of the extreme right behind Ukip under leader Gerard Batten and Robinson, his newly appointed adviser.

Alongside Union Jacks, flags for Generation Identity – a pan-European white nationalist group – Britain First and For Britain were everywhere. The British National Party tweeted from the event. Several signs and banners openly advocated violence.

“The power of the ballot box is mightier than the sword?” said one, ominously. “How wrong was I?”

Another demonstrator, giving his name as Laukan Creasey, carried a gallows and noose. Asked why, he said it was “what the traitor May deserves”.

Some of the speakers, who included the peer Lord Pearson and Welsh Assembly member Neil Hamilton, employed forceful rhetoric in their addresses.

“If parliament does not take Britain out of the European Union, it will be the biggest constitutional crisis since the English Civil War,” declared Mr Batten, before noting how that conflict only ended when “the king lost his head”.

For good measure, he also called the EU a “cancer” and finished up by joking that the media had said “only bald tattooed thugs” would turn up to the rally. “Well,” he added, “I’m not bald”.

The sense was that, after a series of high-profile members including Nigel Farage and Paul Nuttall walked out on his party this week because of its lurch to the right, Mr Batten was abandoning any remaining allusions to moderation.

Paul Oakley, the party’s immigration spokesman, appeared comfortable enough with the decision as he adapted a quote from Sarah Connor, Linda Hamilton’s character in the Terminator films.

“We can’t be bargained with, we can’t be reasoned with, we don’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear,” he shouted. “And we absolutely will not stop, ever, until we get hard Brexit.”

It received a muted response and another speaker was quickly ushered on.

In fact, of all those who took to the makeshift stage it was Robinson who appeared the most considered.

He declared that he had spent his well-documented time in prison thinking – he was locked up for contempt of court in May – and come to the conclusion he could best influence politics by being in a political party. A new populist movement needed to be created in Britain, he said.

“We need a party, we need a political voice, we need to electrify the working class communities of this country,” he declared. “For too long we’ve got excited about elections in Europe, in Sweden, Austria, Italy… Well, it’s our turn and it’s our time and this country is ready.”

The message seemed to be that Ukip was that party.

Yet, as the crowd left, signs of new fissures were already emerging.

A man selling badges with Robinson’s face on it was doing a reasonable enough trade. Dozens of middle-aged men were chanting his name.

Yet several others appeared disconcerted.

“Today was supposed to be about Brexit and about showing Theresa May the people must be heard,” one, who asked not to be identified, said. “I’m here because I believe in what I voted for and I understood it, and I believe in democracy. But this turned into the Tommy Robinson show. It’s not what I signed up for.”