What a difference a day makes. Last Friday, a friend messaged: “There will be loads of them, stay home.” She was referring to far-right activists expected to arrive the following afternoon in Newcastle, the place she has lived since birth. She calls herself a “brown skinned Geordie,” and she was afraid.
Twenty-four hours later, people from across the city gathered in their thousands, not to support the anti-asylum protest arranged by UKIP and Advance UK, but to oppose it. My friend’s home had spoken loudly, and it said hate was not welcome here.
Whose streets? Our streets
I spent my youth on the city streets. I’ve worked, chatted, eaten, created art, watched football, educated my son, and laid relatives to rest in Newcastle. It is mapped on the back of my eyelids. Both sets of protestors on Saturday chanted, “whose streets, our streets” – they belong to the 300,000 citizens who call Newcastle home.
As a proud member of that club, I felt compelled to walk the city streets during last weekend’s protests. Despite my friends’ warning, I visited the spot where UKIP and Co were rallying, before joining the counter-protests organised by ‘Stand Up To Racism,’ ‘Newcastle Unites’ and the Trades Union Congress (TUC).
“You can never trust a refugee,” sang the exclusively white far-right crowd, many draped in union flags, as they unfurled a ‘mass deportation now’ banner. By contrast, the counter-protest included people from a broad range of backgrounds, ages, religious and political traditions, dressed in no apparent uniform, and sporting various homemade placards written in Geordie vernacular. They sang, “Refugees welcome here,” and they were much louder.
Some suggested there were 300 far-right protestors. I couldn’t see more than 200 assembled by the law courts on the city’s quayside, compared to 3000 gathered to oppose them at Earl Grey’s Monument in the heart of town, and a further 500 anti-fascists at The Side, a small stretch of road lined with bars and restaurants. The numbers tell their own story.
A roadblock to hate
The split geography of the anti-fascist protest is significant. The Side group spontaneously blocked the planned route of the far-right march, forcing them to walk a back route to their end destination, close to an asylum hotel. By the time they arrived there, the Monument group had monopolised the central point of the city and were able to shift focus to stand between the far-right crowd and the hotel, despite police attempts to discourage them.
All of this happened without violence, certainly not in the anti-fascist gathering.
The tone of things at the Monument was determined, unified and welcoming. Speakers from trade unions, universities, charities, community organisations, and faith bodies gave a consistent message – there is no room for racism or fascism in Newcastle. This was a mainstream event, joined by the former North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll, the leader of Newcastle City Council Karen Kilgour, and the current North East Mayor Kim McGuinness.
It was a hugely diverse crowd full of Geordie accents and representing all communities of the city. A gathering, as Green Party Councillor Nick Hartley put it, that knows “kindness is a political act.” You could see examples all around. Smiling volunteers guiding arrivals to get a good view, men in football shirts making space for wheelchairs, Muslims and non-Muslims sharing hugs, placards reading: ‘no hate, no fear.’
This felt like the Newcastle I know, and it blocked the road of hatred.
Is it right to call them far-right? You decide
I’m not impartial. Members of my family died in Nazi concentration camps. My grandmother and great-uncle were targets of Oswald Mosely’s Blackshirts. I’m informed by history, but I’m seeking facts to help me understand the world as it is now.
The crowd I saw, bearing anti-asylum banners, had been rallied by Nick Tenconi of the new Advance UK party, and Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon). Here is a little about them, for you to make up your own mind.
Tenconi is the COO of Turning Point UK (TPUK), modelled on Turning Point USA, which is aligned with the MAGA movement. A demonstration in 2023, organised in part by TPUK, saw “extreme violence from the right-wing protestors”. In August, Tenconi, also leader of UKIP, shared a clip of himself dancing to a German far-right anthem and making what some suggest was a Nazi salute. Tenconi and TPUK call that claim a “ridiculous smear.” The clip caused a backlash from antifascists on social media. Advance UK doesn’t have policies yet, but their website tells you they worry about demographic change in the UK, refer to trans women as men, and believe in a ‘Christian constitution.’ Their leader, Ben Habib, previously said he would remove all child benefits and would leave people crossing the channel to drown if they scuppered dinghies.
Robinson is the former leader of the anti-Muslim English Defence League, who has accused the police of treating Asian offenders favourably, and of enabling child sex abuse, as well as urging Britons to rise against an invasion of migrants. Robinson has a criminal record stretching back more than 20 years. He was central to the Unite the Kingdom rally in London on 13 September, which platformed speakers calling for bans on non-Christian religions alongside exponents of the great replacement theory (debunked by The Conversation), and allowed Elon Musk to call for the ‘dissolution of parliament.’
The action is in the reaction
A fortnight after the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally descended into violence, it is no surprise that my friend was worried about what might happen in Newcastle on Saturday. She was also mindful of events across the UK over the last 18 months: riots and coordinated protests built on anti-migrant disinformation and hotel pickets, leading to September’s London event.
Newcastle was the next stop. Yet, when my friend contacted me again on Saturday evening, her mood was different. “I came into town,” she said, “I felt safe.” Was she right to?
Later on Saturday I collected accounts of people of colour being threatened by men wearing union flags. An Afro-Caribbean woman was warned to leave the country, an Asian man was accused of “raping our women,” and a dual-heritage woman was told she would be “punched in the face.” If the aggressors thought these displays of hate would go unaddressed, they were wrong. Other people – white, black, and brown – intervened to protect their fellow citizens. Violence was prevented. No one was hurt.
Did those situations play out this way because of what had happened earlier in the day? Perhaps. The power of an action is often seen in the reactions it inspires.
Kindness is a political act
Last weekend, Newcastle did two things at once: it protected neighbours in asylum accommodation from intimidation, and it modelled the community we want. Public displays of welcome and unity expose far-right activists for who they are. They provide a bold visual alternative to those politicians who seek to exclude anyone who doesn’t fit their definition of British. They offer a connected community reply to conservative organisers who preach hate.
As the chant went: “Newcastle united will never be defeated.” Because kindness – organised, noisy, stubborn kindness – is a political act. And for one weekend at least, it won the day.
