Reeta Chakrabarti News
The valley is shrouded in a heavy drizzle and the streets are quiet on the road to Ystalyfera.
It’s a far cry from the noise and cacophony of central London’s streets last Saturday where police estimate between 110,000 and 150,000 people gathered to protest.
The far-right activist Tommy Robinson attracted many more people than the authorities had expected to his Unite the Kingdom rally last weekend – despite his several criminal convictions and reputation for inflammatory language.
But why did thousands of people travel miles to the heart of Westminster to march with a man reviled by mainstream politics – carrying a banner calling for Remigration Now?
Research from the think tank British Future and More in Common suggests Tommy Robinson’s core support hasn’t increased in more than a decade – but he has become more visible, and with that he’s drawn in others who are very discontented.
More than 700 people who attended the march, and some who opposed them on a Hope not Hate counter-protest, contacted Your Voice Your News, with their views about that day and why they went.
Suzanne Philpott from South Wales was one of those who got in contact.
So we went to meet her and her husband Sam, who had both travelled nearly 200 miles from their pub to go to the march.
Suzanne said she’d never attended a protest before but was compelled to go because of freedom of speech.
She told us the atmosphere they found had been that of a family festival.
Her husband Sam added: “I didn’t go because Tommy Robinson was leading it. It just so happened that he did. I went because I could see from conversations with friends that this was going to be a big event and that people were standing up for being British.”
I asked him if he was comfortable about going to a march led by Tommy Robinson. Sam replied that the worrying thing should be that someone labelled a far-right thug is able to gather that many people in the capital city – because people are that upset.
I pushed him on what Tommy Robinson represents – for many he’s a racist with dangerous views.
Sam’s answer is something he’s thought about.
“I think that’s some of the things he stands for, that’s not everything he stands for… he talks to the working class man in a way that the government aren’t able to. The government are so far detached in their ivory towers, this man has lived and grown up with men on the ground.”
Suzanne has run this village pub, The Flying Pig, for the last seven years and she’s made many changes like introducing a gay night and encouraging more open discussions at the bar about sensitive issues.
A few of the regulars sit and listen to our discussion. Suzanne tells me two small coaches of people went down to the protest march from this area – so why did she go?
“I thought it was really important. I didn’t know it was a Unite the Kingdom rally. I thought it was a freedom of speech march. I think it’s really important not just for us, but for future generations.”
But why did she feel that freedom of speech is under threat and in what way?
“I think it’s coming from all different parties. I think it’s not just from far left or far right. I think it’s from grassroots level of teachers saying you have to use the right pronouns for certain genders. I think it’s coming from people getting the perception again that you can’t fly your flag. I think it’s just trickling in across our whole society really and we can’t accommodate everything all the time, but we should in our own country be able to say what we want.”
During our conversation Sam speaks several times about being proud of his Britishness – I asked him what that meant to him.
“Coming from a working class background I know that most men, my age, with a young family, all they want to do is be able to go to work and have enough money to feed and put a roof over their families head.
“At the moment the working man is struggling because prices are through the roof, rent is through the roof. And what we see then is lots of people coming over and being put up in hotels. We should be funding and helping our people in poverty before we start helping others. I’m not saying we shouldn’t help others but charity begins at home, you should be looking after our own first.”
ReutersHundreds of others contacted the , and our team spoke to many from all over the UK who went to march and echoed some of what the Philpotts say.
It was about nationalism not colour, said one from Dorset; the rally was full of families, mums and dads with their kids, said another from Kent.
One man said it was not a far-right march but a chance for normal British people who are unhappy with the direction of the country.
A woman from Portsmouth told us Tommy Robinson was saying the right things, and no one was listening except him.
A British Muslim man who emailed us, said many migrants had already experienced civil wars in their countries and that “seeing this hate against my children is very alarming”.
Police say eight people have been charged after disorder broke out during the protests and 24 were arrested initially for a range of offences.
Do the rallies suggest a deepening divide in our society?
One side has fears over the cost of living, people’s sense of identity, and the arrival of newcomers and how to deal with them.
On the other is a profound worry that tensions are being stoked with divisive language which has real-life consequences.
Sam Rowe who is of mixed race heritage, was at the smaller counter-protest and contacted us about what it was like for him.
“I was scared, it didn’t feel safe at times,” he said.
He went to the counter protest because he said it was important to show that not everybody agreed with the views of the Unite the Kingdom march leaders.
“I heard some racist language as well at the rally being used and it does make me a bit more scared to kind of go out and be on the streets, despite the fact that I’m British and I was born here.
“But I think it’s easy for us to say that the rally was full of people who are racist. The reality is that the majority, I’m sure the majority of the people there, were there for what they thought were the right reasons, but the people leading the rally were there for racist reasons and I think that was very evident in the speeches they gave.”
These rallies have attracted people prepared to overlook Tommy Robinson’s extremism to protest about their own frustrations – leaving others worried that their place in our society is being challenged.
From the voices we’ve heard, the idea of Britishness and what it means is becoming a battleground.
Additional reporting: Sadaf Maruf
