Brexit: Far-right protesters swap yellow vests for Union Jack bobble hats as police step up presence after MP abuse

Just 24 hours after becoming the biggest news story in the country, the “yellow vest” protesters seemed a little more reticent.

A gaggle of six or seven men, wearing Union Jack bobble hats instead of their trademark garments, skulked quietly a few metres away from a vocal crowd of pro-EU campaigners outside parliament on Tuesday.

A day earlier, led by far-right rabble-rouser James Goddard, the ardent Brexiteers had chanted “Nazi” at Remain-supporting Tory MP Anna Soubry, before pursuing her down the street in Westminster. They also crowded around left-wing journalist Owen Jones, who they branded a “communist bully” and “lying little toad”.

The next day there were few signs of such aggression, nor any sign of Mr Goddard himself.

“He’s not coming down today. It’s a bit hot at the moment,” explained one follower.

He meant the increased police presence following Monday’s confrontation, which prompted Commons speaker John Bercow to urge Scotland Yard to take action to halt “these toxic attacks”.

Four police vans were parked opposite parliament on Tuesday, while patrolling officers outnumbered the activists themselves.

It followed weeks of protests from the loosely organised group, who have been targeting pro-EU activists, politicians and journalists, as well as blocking roads and scuffling with police.

Anti-Brexit campaigners said the yellow vest group had been harassing them on an almost daily basis outside parliament since earlier December.

“They put cameras in our faces, insulting us, trying to pull our flags down – just intimidation, basically. We’ve been called Nazis, paedophile enablers, traitors,” one pro-EU activist told The Independent.

The yellow vest protesters who gathered at College Green on Tuesday suggested anti-Brexit protesters were fair game because they wanted to reverse the result of the referendum.

“We voted to come out, we won the vote and that’s it,” said Andy, a 57-year-old former Tesco worker who did not want to give his surname.

He justified the harassment of Ms Soubry by claiming she had “called us Nazis on Twitter and on Facebook”.

“It works both ways, don’t it,” the Londoner added. “If you give it, you’ve got to take it. She’s a human being, isn’t she. She brings it all on herself.”

Another member of the group, a younger man who gave his name only as Alex, complained about being associated the far right. He described himself as a “normal lad” who had recently left the army and hoped to become a firefighter.

“It’s all well and good for the left to go and do [protests] like this, but if we do something like this we’re branded Nazis, far right, everything else,” he added.

Both men claimed their aims extended no further than securing the UK’s withdrawal from Europe.

Yet they also, entirely unprompted, complained about refugees arriving on British shores - boatloads of them with "designer tracksuits on, iPhone 7 in their hands," suggested Andy. "Fighting age males," Alex chipped in.

Hope Not Hate, which monitors extremism, said the far right was attempting to “hijack” the Brexit debate “to stir up trouble and harass, threaten and attack their political opponents”.

The organisation said yellow vest activists were planning protests this week in Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, and were considering targeting the offices of Remain-voting Labour MPs.

Nick Lowles, Hope Not Hate’s chief executive, said: “While everyone should be allowed to protest peacefully, it is time for the authorities to clamp down on the bullying and threatening tactics used by these extremists before someone is seriously injured.”