Newcastle had more than its fair share of far-right wingers turning up at the weekend, with Ben Habib’s Advance UK holding its launch conference in the city, and Nick Tenconi holding a demonstration with his UKIP goon squad.
Ben Habib had planned a glitzy event to launch his Advance UK party, which has been endorsed by Tommy ‘Ten Names’ Robinson.
Booking cancelled
But Advance’s first booking was cancelled when the hotel management realised who they would be allowing across the threshold.
Then, wherever they turned , they found there was no room for them. Hoteliers in Newcastle have more sense.
They ended up crowded into the Avieka Japanese restaurant tucked away in the Vermont Hotel. Not exactly what Habib had in mind but they managed to squeeze in anyway.
There was just one significant takeaway from the event: Ben Habib’s unequivocal announcement that Tommy Robinson was welcome in Advance.
This is no great surprise given that Robinson and some of his most vocal supporters have been trumpeting their support for Habib with some, including Robinson himself, saying they have already joined up.
Habib split from Reform UK in part because of Nigel Farage’s refusal to find house room for Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, and his army of followers.
But there has been speculation recently that certain key figures in Advance did not believe that welcoming Britain’s most notorious Islamophobic street thug into the ranks of the new party would not be the cleverest move that Habib could make. But now it’s done.
Scruffy parade
Notably, however, Robinson made no effort to attend, despite hinting that he might.
Meanwhile, Robinson’s fanboy, UKIP leader Nick Tenconi, led a rather scruffy parade of 100-200 racists from the Quayside to a rally in the city centre demanding ‘mass deportations’.
They were however, hugely outnumbered by a magnificent turnout of anti-racists, over 3,000 strong, who gathered at Monument.
Even the Daily Express was forced to report that “100 anti-migrant protesters drowned out by counter march”.
