Thank God for the Together Alliance ‘anti-hate’ march (sort of)

Last Saturday's demonstration was a useful reminder of the importance of the right to protest - because it exposed the contradictions and frankly idiotic positions of Zack Polanski and co.

Together Alliance march poster, Oxford

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Does politics really count if your non-politically engaged friends don’t care? Exactly what breaks into the public consciousness often confuses the greatest political strategists. So, when group chats – that are normally full of weekend plans, sporting fixtures and failed dates – suddenly erupt into political discussion, it’s hard not to take notice.

Living in London, the weekend hate marches have become a depressing fixture of big city life: regular, expected, but subdued since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in October last year. But interestingly, these marches seemed to make little impact on my friends. The build-up to the Together Alliance (a march including the Greens, trade unions, the worst kind of Labour MP and the Muslim Council of Britain) was slightly different. There were posters on my commute for weeks before it, a cluster of middle-aged men in Lycra guarding the entrance to my local park recruiting for it, and a visible group of middle-class Londoners draped in the aesthetics of extremism heading toward it.

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Yet, and to my quiet pleasure in an ironic sort of way, this time the march was noticed.

At 10:42 on Sunday morning (the accuracy of WhatsApp groups) a friend sent this beautiful video of Zack Polanski and his merry band of nutcases dancing on stage with the words, ‘I mean, holy f*ck’. Another left-leaning friend who had just returned from travelling responded with ‘Only just clocked how f*cked the Greens are… and how they seem to have a large support’. Another closed with ‘I think the Greens would genuinely make me pack the bags and leave’.

Understandably, increasing numbers of Jewish people, alongside those on the illiberal right, would like to ban or limit pro-Palestinian protests with their antisemitic views and slogans. I’m aware the Together Alliance wasn’t necessarily about Palestine (although why organisers allowed pro-Iranian regime and Palestine activists to dominate it is anyone’s guess). No, this was against hate, racism and the (alleged) far-right, dude. But the same actors were behind it, and the same people were marching on it. Yet the reaction amongst my friends to the march highlights the virtues of free speech: good arguments in the marketplace of free ideas will prevail. When contradictions are laid bare in their ugly nakedness, people notice.

The best example of contradiction was this video doing the rounds on social media. Men waving flags linked to Hezbollah, ISIS and Hamas underneath the rainbow + BLM + circle in yellow triangle bunting on the stage of a historic London high street. Two ideologies diametrically opposed except in their hatred for Western civilisation (and Jews) – marching on a jewel of London. The real far-right – people who are against the emancipation of women, gay rights and free speech – were marching with the far left, on the streets that afford them the rights to do so.

How it came to this is a question for another time. But for those who want to destroy this movement led by Zack Polanski, you must show it to people – or better, let them do it for you. Banning marches such as these will allow dangerous ideas to fester beneath party structures. If the Greens are a ‘Trojan horse’ for Islamism, the horse is bolting before it’s been built. Restrictions on the right to protest will only allow for a more deceptive Green-Islamist alliance.

Let’s hope for another march this weekend – sunlight remains the best disinfectant.

Jake Weston works on comms and press at the Academy of Ideas.

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