EXCLUSIVE: Tommy Robinson claimed his protest drew “three million patriots” to London’s streets, while the Met Police reported 110,000 attendees.
The police say over 110,000 attended the march on Saturday (Image: Getty)
The size of the crowd at Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally has been at the centre of debate after the Metropolitan Police claimed there were about 110,000 people in attendance. Mr Robinson claimed his protest drew “three million patriots” to London’s streets, calling it the largest protest in British history. Professor Milad Haghani, chairman and founder of the Crowd Safety Summit, has provided his professional view, claiming it is common for figures to be both deflated and inflated when a protest is of a political nature.
Prof Haghani told the Express: “For a rally with a political cause like this, there’s every incentive to inflate and deflate the crowd size. I’ve already seen figures thrown around from three million to one million to 100,000 That’s not unusual for events with such a distinct political and controversial nature. The truth almost always sits somewhere in between.”
Tommy Robinson claims over three million Brits went on the march (Image: Getty)
He continued: “My own initial (mis)perception gave me a very different impression – closer to 200,000 – and I even checked with one of our postdoctoral fellows, who thought I was underestimating.
“But once we resorted to the map and did some approximate calculations, it became clear we had both fallen for the same visual trap of thinking the crowd was bigger than it really was.”
Prof Haghani, from the University of Melbourne, believes fewer than 100,000 people attended the march on Sunday, and explained how he got to that conclusion. He said that the stretch of road occupied by the crowd was about 700 metres long and around 20 metres wide, at a density of four people per square metre.
“That gives about 56,000,” he said. “Including an additional 10,000 at each end for the two squares, we only reach roughly 76,000. However I run the numbers, it’s very difficult to make it to 100,000.”
The Metropolitan Police reported 110,000 participants in the main Unite the Kingdom demonstration on Saturday, alongside roughly 5,000 counter-protesters organised by Stand Up to Racism.
About 5,000 counter-protesters marched in London (Image: Getty)
Media outlets such as Reuters, The New York Times, and CNBC cited similar figures of “over 100,000” or “about 110,000”, while aerial analysis by The Guardian suggested a lower figure of 50,000.
However, Mr Robinson responded to these reports on X, and said: “The Guardian reported ‘110k’ at our London rally today.
“Yet, they literally had their own helicopter showing the millions of patriots. Legacy media is proving again they’ll just lie to your face for their own agenda. This is why nobody trusts them. We are the media now.”
Mr Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, added on Saturday: “Over THREE million patriots hit central London today in a force of patriotism never seen before. And we’re just getting started.”
Individuals have since flocked to X, claiming the Met Police figure of 110,000 is extremely low.
One person claimed on the social media platform: “I’ve seen LGBT protests that are said to have had 150-200,000-plus attendees.
“I saw the royal wedding that was reportedly half a million.
“What I saw today dwarfed the two of them combined … I’m not even on a side to be perfectly honest, but if the media are going to start purposely telling people lies, then that is going to rub me the wrong way.
“If I had to guess from my eye alone, conservatively I would say 1.5million attendees minimum, but likely more.”
Another wrote: “The helicopter footage shows it was well over a million and I wouldn’t be surprised at more,” while a third added: “I was there at Unite the Kingdom. It was easily over two million.”
A fourth person said: “Nobody I know can count a crowd of that magnitude. I’ve been to Wembley with 100,000 and went to similar events twice in 2024. These numbers were on a totally different level.”
