The day the lion roared By John Wycliffe September 16, 2025

THE HYPE was justified. It was a truly huge and historical event. It is probably going too far, to quote Yeats, that ‘all changed, changed utterly’ but September 13, 2025, will almost certainly go down as a turning point in the battle for Britain’s soul (ahem! England's soul. Britain is turf. England is people)), and perhaps that of the West in general.

I was part of that large segment of the rally that failed to get into the main event and hear the speakers so I will confine my observations to my experience among the small segment of the rally I inhabited, which may or may not be entirely representative of this enormous event.

Many readers will have their own observations drawn from their experiences and there is obviously a great deal of commentary, such as Kathy Gyngell’s account here, citizen journalist and official footage to watch online.

Travelling up on the train was the first clue that the day was to be special: it was unusually full for a Saturday morning, with some very heavy looking middle-aged men, plainly veterans of the dubious football ‘firm’ culture that Robinson in his youth was once such a part of, mixed with couples and sometimes children.

Once disembarked we proceeded towards London Bridge and walked to the muster point on Stamford Street. Here a truly astonishing sight formed before our eyes, as both crowds and flags merged into a dense kaleidoscope of colours. Not so much a United Kingdom but kingdoms united, with British, English, Scots, Welsh, Northern Irish, Israeli, United States and Persian flags to name but a few. The atmosphere was joyous and upbeat.

Although dominantly male, a very significant number of women were there also – I thought making between a quarter and a third of those present. Despite the billing as ‘family friendly’, I saw few children, but that was probably for the best.

Although there were certainly black and Asian people in the crowds these were disappointingly disproportionately few and far between – perhaps 1 or 2 per cent of the total. No doubt many sympathised but were fearful of the reception they may receive from the so-called and actually almost non-existent ‘far right’ elements the media constantly talk about whereas others may be just much less concerned than the generally more settled white population at the pace of cultural and ethnic change.

And then – everything stopped! Despite arriving well before the 11.30am start time we were stationary on the road for well over 90 minutes. Still, the crowd remained very Britishly stoic and entirely good natured.

I talked to my fellow participants: despite obvious profound frustration and fear at our fast-deteriorating national situation, there wasn’t a single instance of aggressive, let alone racist, speech or chanting, and although we were entertained by almost constant renditions of ‘Keir Starmer is a w*****’ while we waited, it was in a spirit of banter rather than thuggery.

Eventually, after an age, we started to walk towards Westminster Bridge and things started to become confused and slightly more tense.

The heavens opened to a deluge of cold, slicing rain and as we walked on we saw a steadily increasing stream of patriots coming back the other way. Why was this happening? There was no official communication and the police lines were well ahead of us. I asked one man why he was going back, and he said that the police had barred further entrance to a now packed Whitehall where the main speaking event was held, presumably fearing a Hillsborough-style crush.

A very small minority – perhaps half a dozen of individuals here and there – sporadically remonstrated with those leaving, unhelpfully and bizarrely calling them cowards. What on earth were they advocating – perhaps a Charge of the Light Brigade-style rush at the cops? These isolated yobs were entirely ignored, and there was no move forwards or angry reaction by the crowd in general.

We moved forwards again and reached the north end of the bridge but were forced to turn right along the Embankment. The atmosphere here was more one of confusion and faint demoralisation than anything else – after all, we had come to hear Tommy Robinson and a host of famous speakers (including, it turned out, both Ben Habib and Elon Musk) and it was now increasingly clear that the climax of the day had been denied us.

Time again the crowd tried to turn left towards Whitehall and time and again it was closed off by the police.

We were also denied exit via what looked an equally packed Waterloo Bridge. As this video by British Landeur explains, it seems that the police lines were channelling us along the river bank, though we didn’t know this at the time. At one point we passed the sterile area between the patriots and counter-demonstrators and, as Landeur’s video shows, some shouting and altercation ensued.

Here I think both organisers and police deserve some criticism. The police obviously had to avoid a crush situation that could have led to major loss of life, but at times looked both confused and panicked, making it up as they went along.

Robinson himself had repeatedly claimed that more than one million were going to turn up. Plainly Whitehall cannot hold such numbers, so why was there no contingency plan? Either the organisers, the police or both didn’t seriously believe the rally would be on the scale it turned out to be or were highly negligent.

It was only because of the very good-spirited and peaceable nature of the crowd – the vast, vast majority of whom did not want trouble – that a potential disaster was averted. Had the rally really contained even a small fraction of aggressive ‘far right’ hooligans hell-bent on violence, there is no way that the police would have been able to hold a determined push on their lines. Total catastrophe could have resulted.

My experience, then, was not exactly the family-friendly day it was billed to be – I doubt I would want my children standing around for hours, sometimes in heavy rain, hearing an endless loop of good-natured but mildly profane football chants, and with a real if small risk of encountering trouble. However, it was a million miles away from the narrative of football thuggery or aggression the mainstream media want you to believe it to be.

In many ways the rally was a victim of its own success. Even the limited experience afforded to many who couldn’t make it to the main event was a magical occasion. Even if disappointed, a very few hotheads aside the great majority of people accepted this with good grace and were clearly quietly proud to have taken part in a historic day.

On the ground it was impossible to get a true idea of scale but, as this aerial footage by the Guardian shows, the official figure of 110,000 people is way too low, though Robinson’s claim of three million is equally fantastical. (Surely with modern high-resolution cameras, drones and AI it should be easy to get accurate counts rather than the absurd pantomime of ‘spin the numbers’ at these events.)

The major takeaway is the direction of travel: namely one of geometric growth, just as Robinson predicted. Plainly, given the intransigence of the political and media elites Unite The Kingdom is simply going to grow and grow and the criticism here is offered constructively so that future events can be more meticulously planned.

The big losers were the British Establishment, legacy parties and the now quite ridiculous mainstream media – indeed, as predicted by independent journalists such as Dan Wootton, it was perhaps the day it finally died. This piece of absurd Daily Telegraph regime narrative is a case in point.

Politically, the big winner of the day was Ben Habib of Advance UK**, who once again was prepared to put his belief in the British people to the test and courageously spoke when no other British politician would – and it paid off.

How ‘Two-Tier Tice’ must regret his contemptuous ‘that lot’ comment as Advance UK starts to eat into Reform’s grassroots support! An even bigger winner was of course a certain Tommy Robinson: highly flawed but heroic, it was the day he truly went mainstream.

But the biggest winners of all though were the real, plain British people – mocked, ignored, traduced but now awake. It was the day they rose up with quiet dignity, pride and a very British defiance. It was a day that the lion once again roared.

**Full disclosure – in his earthly form the shade of John Wycliffe is very proud and honoured to be a member of the AdvanceUK College, so hardly impartial.

ED - UK anything is a waste of time, the perpetrator and the traitor. England has to move to independence.

PICTURE - Tiktoker Zonjy with Chelsea pensioners. His real name Adam, a refugee from Sudan.