More than 100,000 people have massed in central London for a march and rally organised by far-right activist Tommy Robinson, as anti-racism campaigners held a counter-protest.
Huge crowds, many draped in English and British flags, gathered through Saturday morning just south of Westminster for what Robinson, a veteran of UK far-right organising, has branded the country's "biggest free speech festival".
His latest "Unite the Kingdom" event saw attendees march over Westminster Bridge before rallying near Downing Street for speeches by far-right figures from across Europe and North America.
"The silent majority will be silent no longer," Robinson told the crowd. "Today is the spark of a cultural revolution."
UK police said an estimated 110,000 people attended, noting it used a combination of CCTV and police helicopter footage for its estimate.
Around 5,000 people attended a Stand Up to Racism march a mile or so to the north, as police deployed about 1,000 police to keep the rival groups apart.
The duelling demonstrations come amid growing anti-immigration sentiment, as protesters target hotels used to house asylum seekers.
Robinson, 42, who has a string of criminal convictions and a big online following after years of spearheading a fervent anti-Muslim and anti-migrant agenda, increasingly fuses those themes with claims that Britain is now hostile to free speech.
Far-right speakers
Other attendees, who included women and young people, said they were more worried about migration.
"It's an invasion," 28-year-old Ritchie, who only gave his first name, said of the record levels of UK immigration in recent years, including tens of thousands of asylum seekers arriving annually on small boats across the Channel.
"They don't understand we want our country back," he said of the ruling Labour government and its Conservative predecessors, calling Robinson "a hero".
At the anti-racism event, veteran Labour lawmaker Diane Abbott accused Robinson and his allies of spreading "nonsense" and "dangerous" lies that asylum seekers were a threat.
"We need to be in solidarity with asylum seekers, and we need to show that we are united," she told Sky News.
London police, who drafted in officers from other forces to manage the crowds, have placed conditions on the protest routes and timings, insisting they end at different times and that both conclude by evening.
Some at Robinson's event attached to their placards photos of Charlie Kirk, the right-wing American activist and ally of Donald Trump, who was shot to death this week.
Other signs included slogans like "stop the boats" and derided Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
