Press Release | Campaigners Attacked and Arrested Exposing Hypocrisy of Anti-Racism March

This story is being continually updated as new video emerges.

For press or media please contact press@OurFight.uk.

On Saturday February 1st, 2025, Our Fight supporters joined the Stand Up to Racism march to expose the hypocrisy of the organisers and marchers.

Although the progressives claim that they are anti-racist, against anti-Semitism, and 'welcome refugees', the truth is that they believe and do none of these; if you support Israel, or are an Iranian refugee who stands against Islamism, then you will find yourself attacked, spat at and even arrested. It seems that the only minorities they support are those that agree with them.

Although the supporters joined the march peacefully, and their placards contained simple statements (see heading image):

Our Fight's founder, Mark Birbeck said:

Yet again those who stand against anti-Semitism are caught between the hard left and the incompetent police.

In the past 15 months we have joined many events organised by the so-called progressive left, to show them up for what they are. We simply stand with placards, containing messages that you would think no-one could argue with, such as being against anti-Semitism, or that Hamas are terrorists. And every single time we have had our property stolen, been attacked, spat on, thrown to the ground, and even arrested. On Saturday it was actually Stand Up to Racism stewards who attacked us.

The police need to take this seriously. They treat these incidents as if there are two groups of football fans, with neither better than the other. But this is not the case; we demand our right to state simple messages on the streets of London, without being attacked or arrested for it.

Since there are a number of misrepresentations on social media about what happened and why, we are providing the following description of the events with accompanying video.

Sequence of Events

Our group met in Trafalgar Square from 11.30am onwards. Everyone in our group was in the square by about 12.30pm; no-one went to Waterloo first, or joined the 'Stop the Isolation' march at any point. In other words, contrary to what the Met Police reported about a 'breach of conditions' by us, no conditions were broken:

As far as we understand the Public Order Act, we did not breach any Section 12 or Section 14 restrictions, since we did not attend any part of the Stop the Isolation event. If the police are trying to claim that we did breach their conditions, simply because someone in the group had previously attended a rally that was addressed by Tommy Robinson, then it will take the Public Order Act into the realms of 'thought crime'.

The conditions the police imposed are below, and it's clear that the intent is that once someone is part of an event they should not leave it. However, there is nothing to say that you are obliged to join a particular event:

Met sets out policing plans ahead of weekend protests

There will be an increased police presence in central London on Saturday with two protests due to take place.

Metropolitan PoliceMetropolitan Police

It's also important to stress that since we were never on the so-called 'Tommy Robinson march', there could have been no 'invasion' from the march. We would therefore like the Daily Mail to retract the following statement:

Police arrest six as Tommy Robinson supporters clash with other demo

Thousands of protesters from opposing sides gathered across central London, with one group marching in support of Tommy Robinson, while another held a counter-protest against racism.

Daily MailRobert Folker

The Daily Mail clearly based this determination of an 'invasion' on the Met Police's own incorrect report. This is important because it implies that there were violent elements on the Stop the Isolation march. We don't know whether there were or not, since we weren't on the march. But what we can say is that the arrests of two Our Fight campaigners cannot be used to say that the Stop the Isolation march was aggressive or ill-disciplined since they are completely unrelated.

After the march arrived in Trafalgar Square, we joined it at the point just before it entered Whitehall. We did not do anything aggressive in order to join—we simply inserted ourselves into the march, and started walking:

We manoeuvred ourselves closer to the front of the march, and once the march was in Whitehall, we took out our posters. We continued walking with the march, at the front, behind the main banner:

When the march arrived at the rally point, we moved in front of the stage, and faced the arriving crowd, still holding our placards:

After a short time, an SUTR activist, Lewis Nielsen (@lewis_nielsen):

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leaned over from the stage and grabbed Mark Birbeck's poster, to cheers from the crowd. Mark moved along the stage to try to retrieve it. A steward tried to block his path and Mark pushed past. He then tried to climb onto the stage where 4 or 5 stewards pulled him off and pushed him to the ground:

Two police officers then intervened, and along with a steward, walked Mark away from the stage, all three holding his arms. The police later released Mark without charge, but said that he could not return to the area, and if he did he would be arrested and charged. It was not clear what he would be arrested for—they said Section 14, but since that prevents someone leaving an event, not joining one, it wasn't clear how that would work. But anyway, Mark agreed with the condition.

At this point he informed the police that he had spotted the person who spat on him at the previous SUTR march, and who was currently being sought by the police. He asked the officers to radio this in to see if the person could be identified:

After the attack on Mark Birbeck by the stewards, Niyak Ghorbani (@ghorbaniiNiyak) was also attacked, and stewards and members of the crowd tried to take his placard. He was also thrown to the ground, and as with Mark, the police intervened, but not to protect him—to detain him. Whilst being moved away another crowd member assaulted him by pulling his hair. All of this took place while the crowd were chanting "refugees are welcome here":

Niyak was then arrested, accused of breaching Section 14 or Section 12. However, since Niyak had never entered the zone for the Stop the Isolation march, this is clearly a mistake on the part of the police:

Following Niyak's arrest, one other Our Fight campaigner were arrested. Again, they were arrested for either Section 12 or Section 14 offences. Again, this is particularly dangerous for civil liberties because the implication is that the police can tell you which march to join.

Our Fight are grateful for the continued legal support provided by both Campaign Against Antisemitism and Stop the Hate. We will be strongly challenging all of the thefts, assaults and wrongful arrests.