With Brexit Plans in Doubt, Britons on Both Sides Rally in London

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A pro-Brexit demonstration in central London on Sunday.CreditCreditAdrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Dec. 9, 2018

LONDON — With questions swirling about how the British government would try to salvage its plan for leaving the European Union, protesters from the left and the far right held rallies across London on Sunday to mobilize voters behind alternatives to the deal.

Parliament is expected to vote on Tuesday on Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan for extracting Britain from the European Union. But with the strongest proponents both for leaving and staying in the bloc lining up against the deal, some British news outlets reported on Sunday that Mrs. May would try a last-ditch appeal to win more concessions from European Union leaders to mollify conservatives who want a cleaner split.

Those reports raised the prospect that Mrs. May would delay the vote to avoid an embarrassing defeat in Parliament. And support for a second referendum on Britain’s departure appeared to be gathering steam among both Labour and Conservative lawmakers.

The marches on Sunday, though, were as much about long-simmering forces in British politics as about the wrangling over Mrs. May’s deal.

Tommy Robinson, an anti-Islam activist who was recently named an adviser to the far-right U.K. Independence Party, led a “Brexit Betrayal” march in Central London to rally for a clean split from the European Union.

A crowd marching from the Dorchester Hotel sang his name and rang a big liberty bell on a cart.

Before the march, Gerard Batten, the U.K. Independence Party leader, wrote on Twitter: “Be there to show you want to Dump the Deal, & that Brexit Means Exit! This is only pro-Brexit rally to be held before the vote next week.”

Pro-Europe activists, meanwhile, began a counterprotest nearby to resist what they described as a growing tide of anti-immigrant and nationalist feelings awakened by the 2016 referendum.

“The Brexit moment has irretrievably emboldened the far right and its narratives,” Michael Chessum, a national organizer for Another Europe Is Possible, who was helping organize the counterprotest, recently wrote in The Guardian.

“The question is whether the left has both the radical solutions to the social crisis on which it feeds, and the intellectual courage to defeat it.”

Tommy Robinson, second from left, led the “Brexit Betrayal” march on Sunday.CreditAdrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The police in London said the marches would have to follow certain routes to avoid the groups meeting on the streets.

Christopher Holt, 41, who had traveled three hours from the Newcastle area, said, “The British love their freedom, and they’ll stand up for it.”

He said he had increased his activism after his job, in tech support, had been outsourced to Bulgaria. “People will make a stand on the country,” he said, adding: “We will get Brexit one way or another. They’ve been given a mandate, and they need to see it through.”

In an auditorium in East London, different groups of pro-Europe campaigners gathered in support of a second referendum, which they hope would reveal creeping doubts about leaving the bloc and reverse the results of the 2016 vote.

In October nearly one million people, including the mayor of London, took to the streets of London for a “People’s Vote” march on the final Brexit deal.

On Sunday, a crowd of 300 people waved Union Jacks in a low-key scene; many wore “Brexit Means Exit” vests.

Lee Windsor, 51, of London, said: “I’m in construction. In seven years on building sites I’ve worked with four English builders. The rest are from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, wherever. The difference is I pay tax and they get paid in tax.”

“The entire building industry has been taken over by these guys,” he added. “They’ve created a microeconomy. And when I go to the pub, I don’t see any of these guys spending money there.”

David Rayner, 51, a chauffeur in the city, was waving a sign that said, “No PM Is Better Than a Bad PM,” an apparent reference to Mrs. May.

“You’ve got people like Lord Adonis saying you’re going to lose jobs” over Brexit, Mr. Rayner said, referring to Andrew Adonis, a Labour member of the House of Lords who is pro-Europe. “Where was he when our factories were shutting down and sending jobs to Slovakia and Turkey?”