Although the promised south coast thunderstorms didn’t materialise, the Great British National Protest on Dover beach today turned out to be a totally damp squib.
Organiser and ex-squaddie Richard Donaldson had forecast that millions would attend – though he did prudently scale down his expected numbers from 16 to 9 million. In the event around 250 sorry souls assembled on a windswept beach, railed against migrants and the Labour government for a couple of hours then drifted away.
And, despite Donaldson’s claims that this was all about unity and was ‘non-political’, neo-nazis from Patriotic Alternative were made welcome with their flag – seen on the left in our photo. There was also a UKIP presence, though Nick Tenconi did not make an appearance.
From Manchester James and Claire Hodges from Unite the Kingdom turned up the night before and were seen wandering round with Donaldson. They would probably have been better off staying up north and making up the numbers at their own event, which they abandoned.
Local observers estimated about 50 hard core fascists with the rest of the crowd made up of racist families – many with three generations in attendance. And, despite a promised mobilisation of ‘Bikers for Britain’ no members of the right wing bike club were spotted.
Donaldson is discovering just what a crowded field the far-right grifting scene actually is, and how little room there is for an upstart intruder.