A protest organised by the far-right Oxfordshire Patriots group was outnumbered by an anti-racist counter-protest in Oxford today.
The Stand Up To Racism counter-protest, made up of around 50 people, met the Oxfordshire Patriots protests, made up of about 13 people, at Carfax Tower. From Cornmarket Street, they followed the Patriots down St Aldate’s Street, Speedwell Street, and round Westgate, ending at Bonn Square. At Bonn Square, the rival protesters faced off around the war memorial, chanting back and forth at each other.
Far-right group Oxfordshire Patriots assembled in Oxford as part of a ‘Stop the Boats: Enough is Enough’ protest. As they marched through Oxford, their chants included “where’s your passport, in the channel” and “you can never trust a lefty with your kids”. One held an AI-generated image of a bulldog biting into a dinghy.
Following the protesters around Westgate, Stand Up to Racism chanted: “fascist scum off our streets” and “when the Muslim community is under attack, what do we do? Stand and fight back”. Later on in the protest, they called out the Oxfordshire Patriots, explicitly saying: “Oxfordshire Patriots, we see you, racists and fascists through and through.”
A student at the counter-protest told Cherwell: “We are here in solidarity with all the different groups at risk of losing their rights. The far right stirs up division, but we have the resources and the privilege to protest against them.”
Speaking to Cherwell at the start of the counterprotest, Oxfordshire Stand Up To Racism organiser Ian McKendrick said that the Oxfordshire Patriots “want to parade to stop the boats flags around town today”. He argued that this was a “racist dog whistle” and that “they want to parade a racist message around town”. Regarding the goal of the counterprotest, he said: “We don’t want them doing that unchallenged. We want to show that Oxford is overwhelmingly anti-racist.”
As the counterprotesters followed the Patriots down St Aldate’s and Speedwell, their numbers visibly swelled. At times, they attempted to march in front of or mix with the Patriots’ group. Upon reaching Bonn Square, the Oxfordshire Patriots stood on the steps by the War memorial shouting “stop the boats” and “illegal immigrants aren’t welcome here”. They were surrounded by a much larger group of counterprotesters, joined by drummers from Extinction Rebellion.
McKendrick also accused the Oxfordshire Patriots of being aligned with far-right influencer Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (better known as Tommy Robinson) and Danny Tommo. Tommo, the leader of Patriot Platform, is best known for protests against small boat arrivals in Dover and Portsmouth earlier this year. Aiden Noble, the leader of Oxfordshire Patriots, would not speak to Cherwell to answer these claims. Noble did, however, lead a chant of “Oh Tommy Tommy” at Bonn Square and publicly called on Facebook for people to join the protests in Portsmouth this September.
At the end of the protest, McKendrick spoke to the Stand Up To Racism protesters on Cornmarket, saying, to big cheers, that the Oxfordshire Patriots had been “humiliated”. He added that “we can count that as a big win”.
Ending his speech, he alluded to the protests against Nathan Cofnas’ upcoming speaker event at Oriel College on Tuesday. He said that “we need thousands outside Oriel College to show we are going to be an unbreakable bulwark against that kind of fascism”.
Cherwell also spoke to some Oxford students involved in the counter-protest. They told Cherwell they had come down to counter the far right’s narrative that their views are popular, saying: “I came to invalidate their [the Far Right’s] arguments that they are the silent majority.”
