It was an a-typical, crisp yet sunny Saturday in the capital as the Together Alliance’s Whitehall rally saw an estimated tens of thousands gathered from one in the afternoon, by seven in the evening – Farage kicked off their local election campaigns in Croydon at an indoor rally.
Outside, a counter-rally of Your Party candidates, current left wing councillors as well as local residents formed a ring held back by Police outside of Fairfield Hall. Inside, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage spoke ahead of the party’s London election campaigns, which will include Croydon, ahead of May.
“We are seriously competitive in Croydon, in Bromley, in Bexley, in Havering, and maybe two or three others. “So we’re going to make a big dent in London over the course of the next few weeks.”
The anti far right counter rally outside was spurred by the large turnout at Whitehall earlier in the day, which featured several speakers taking the stage from left wing politicians like Zack Polanski, to a range of celebrities from Billy Bragg to Sonny Green, and by video link, Mayor Sadiq Khan.
It seemed organizers at Fairfield Hall expected some trouble inside, as two protesters, reported by MyLondon as Alex (30) and Kay (23) from Green New Deal Rising (GNDR) youth movement shouted that Farage had done “fuck all for the working class” and chanted “Reform is not welcome here.”
One protester shouted:
“Nigel, you are not welcome in London; you are funded by billionaires.”
Farage shouted back “Boring!” as screens behind coordinated the catch-phrase in neon blue and supporters told the protesters to “shut up”.
Residents that attended the Reform rally spoke to South London News about the upcoming election. One lifelong Croydon resident, Ian, told South London News:
“Nigel Farage is going to be the Prime Minister. “Everybody was pleased to know that Reform and all the new Councillors, on May 7th, are going to take the country by Storm.”
Asked how he believed Reform could improve the area, Ian said:
“Why shouldn’t they be able to fix it? You’ve got people there who genuinely, genuinely have a passion to make this work. All the other parties don’t care about anything. “They’re not offering anything. None of these other parties are offering anything. Except drudge and carry on as before, you know. “So Reform has got a number of new people who are willing to— they’ve got the passion to stand up and do something. They’re not… career politicians, they’re people just who’ve got fed up with the whole thing to do with politics and they’re going to now make a stand. And that’s what’s happening now – there’s going to be a big change in Britain.”
Another local resident, Jersey, said:
“I usually don’t expect for people to come to Croydon, you know there’s always a risk – it’s not necessarily the first place in mind you’d go to.”
He added:
“And I wanted to see what would be the turnout, and I was interested in the kinds of people that could come and if there would be local people from the area too “The turnout was surprisingly quite good. I’ve noticed many [local] residents, so there was quite a show of hands for Croydon, which was nice compared to the protest outside which was very minor in comparison.”
Jersey was clear that his voting priorities come May would be concerning the area’s safety and local services were improved.
The organized left wing pushback across London
Earlier in the day, Jeremy Corbyn, parliamentary leader of the Your Party spoke to South London News on those attending the Croydon Rally that evening, Jeremy Corbyn said:
“Think for a moment of what you expect to be said there and think of the issues facing all of us in London, housing, lack of funding for health and for education. Farage’s obsession with attacking refugees doesn’t solve any of those problems. “What it does is to remind our society and our community we’ll solve these problems together by challenging economic inequality, not blaming migrants, who are often the victims of the most grotesque abuse of human rights imaginable to anybody.”
To Croydon’s residents, Jeremy Corbyn added:
“Be stoic, come through it, but above all, don’t listen or believe what Reform says. They don’t have the answers to anything. People together, communities together, do have the answers.”
For the diverse community of Croydon, many felt uncomfortable at Farage’s choice of venue. Melecia Mullings is a local activist and candidate for Your Party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC), elected by Your Party members, for London.
Mullings said:
“I’m here because I’m standing up for Croydon. This is where I live, this is where my children live, this is my community, I love this place and this was a really, you know, sour moment, I think for me, for Croydon to allow this to happen.”
When asked about Farage’s choice to launch Reform’s London campaign in an area where over half of residents are considered an ethnic minority in the UK, she said:
“It’s an F.U. to us, right? Sorry to say it like that. “In December, he tried to have some form of rally and we shut that down. So he picked an even bigger venue to say, you know what, this is what I think of you. I am going to try and rally the hidden, I would say, racist and [bigoted] people around Croydon and pick them off, and give you a run for your money. Now, all well and good, he thinks that, but Croydon came out today to tell him that that’s not going to happen.”
Green Party Councillor representing Fairfield, Ria Patel, told South London News:
“I believe that our flagship venue, Fairfield Hall, should not be used for a purpose like this. We’ve seen so many wonderful people out here in solidarity counteracting this planned event at Fairfield Hall by Farage and his Reform party.”
To local Reform supporters, Melecia Mullings said:
“We were all miseducated about many things, people had very bigoted views from history, and it recycled and recycled, and every single time we have an integration where people are working together, then somebody moves the goal post a little bit further.”
Mullings added:
“And in order for us to be together, in harmony, we have to understand that things were done in the past that were wrong. People that have come here to build a country, deserve to be here and they don’t deserve to see that their neighbours are these people that have these horrible views towards them and it’s an irrational fear.”
A similar sentiment was echoed by Jeremy Corbyn at Whitehall, he said:
“The people that have more recently arrived as asylum seekers, they’re not our enemies. They’re tomorrow’s teachers, they’re tomorrow’s nurses, they’re our next door neighbours in the future. We can build a fantastic united society, but we can’t do it if we obsess ourselves with attacking minorities and promoting economic inequality.”
Ria Patel told South London News:
“Croydon is one of the most diverse boroughs in London. We have such fantastic communities here and we need to make sure that everybody feels welcome here, whether they were born here or are refugees living here, regardless they should be welcome here. Having Farage here, simply, is not doing that, Farage is here to stoke up fear and division, and hate – the majority of us stand together in hope and unity. There are upcoming elections in May and we know that hopefully Croydon will go with hope in mind.”
Although a common theme across both sides seemed to be dissatisfaction with the current state of the borough. Patel said:
“I really understand residents who feel compelled potentially by Reform kind-of policies and Farage himself because what we have seen in Croydon is consistent failure after failure. Labour have bankrupted the council, the Conservatives haven’t managed to fix it, we are still in a pretty dire situation in the Council in terms of finances but also in terms of residents feeling any kind of positive hope or that anything will change. What I think residents are looking for is an alternative and sadly they’ve chosen that alternative in Farage.”
Although the Reform party scores higher in each national poll, it has just 13 councillors currently in London with a total of 1,817 seats being contested in May.
The slogan “Reform will fix it.” Was emblazoned on wrist tags of the rally’s attendees and lit up on stage.
On Croydon’s financial difficulties, which has seen the borough bankrupted three times since 2020, he said it was “probably the worst-run council in the country.” According to the BBC.
He added:
“Never once did I say that we would cut council tax, never ever once, because they’re all skint, you know, I mean just as Croydon is, [all of London’s borough Councils] they’re all in trouble.”
