While the British establishment laid the flattery on thick for US president Donald Trump in Windsor, 40km to the west of central London, left-wing protesters in the city’s West End on Wednesday had a few more choice things to say.
“Trump is a c**t,” was a popular protest sign among the thousands who gathered in Portland Place at 2pm. Another protester dressed as a giant Trump baby was led by the hand through the crowd. “Netanyahu’s b***h boy,” read the sign around the baby’s neck, referring to Israel’s prime minister, a close Trump ally.
The protesters planned to march a traditional route down Regent Street and Whitehall towards Parliament Square, where the speakers were due to include new Greens leader Zack Polanski, the bright new hope of Britain’s left, and its old hope, Jeremy Corbyn.
The London march was ostensibly in opposition to Trump’s three-day state visit to the UK, which kicked off on Wednesday behind the high, secure walls of Windsor Castle, well away from any madding crowds.
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But in reality, it seemed less about the US president, and more about the divisions convulsing Britain itself. Left- and right-wing protesters had yet another opportunity to go nose-to-nose and bellow their respective slogans.
Britain’s hard-right factions and their favourite pin-up, the activist Tommy Robinson, drew 150,000 on to the streets of London on Saturday. That event’s scale stunned some observers – Britain’s hard right was incapable of anything that large for decades.
Wednesday’s Stop Trump Coalition march – an assortment of left-wing groups including pro-trans, pro-Ukraine, pro-Palestinian – who gathered in the West End on Wednesday afternoon, was far smaller.
There seemed to be fewer than 10,000 by the time the march finally set off at around 3pm. Yes, this was a weekday afternoon versus Robinson’s march on Saturday, when it is always easier to get a crowd.
[ In pictures: King Charles and Donald Trump at Windsor CastleOpens in new window ]
But much of the energy right now seems to be on the right wing of British politics generally. Sassy protest signs aside, the atmosphere at the left-wing anti-Trump march was actually quite flat.
There were occasional frissons. A lone hard-right counter protester stood waving a Union Jack near Oxford Circus station. He wore a T-shirt that said he was “Not far right, but right so far”.
He berated the left-wingers for wearing Palestine badges: “If you’re so on the side of the oppressed, why don’t you go over there and live with them?”
They berated him back.
The man, who gave his name to The Irish Times only as “Maximus”, said he had travelled to London by train for the occasion.
“Donald Trump is better than any of the alternatives. I want to show people that there is at least one true British patriot prepared to stand here to say he is welcome,” he said.
Meanwhile, Trump was secure at a military parade in Windsor, where the Red Arrows were performing a fly-past. Four Led by Donkeys protesters had been arrested on Tuesday night for projecting pictures of the US president with Jeffrey Epstein on to the walls of Windsor Castle. But Wednesday’s parade was largely protest free.
[ I was not surprised to see the Irish Tricolour at the Tommy Robinson marchOpens in new window ]
Back in London, a contingent from the UK branch of Democrats Abroad joined the anti-Trump march. A US woman holding its banner and who declined to be identified said she was afraid of the consequences for her British husband if US officials took note.
“My husband is British and our son, a US citizen, lives in the US. My husband was afraid that if he joined the march, the Secret Service could be using facial recognition software and he might not be let in to visit his son the next time,” she said.
“This is the sort of environment we are living in. I’m heartbroken.”
Further along the route, a left-wing protester had stolen Maximus’s Union Jack and run off with it. Someone else, clearly a sympathiser, handed him a replacement and he walked into the middle of the road to wave it in the face of protesters and goad them further.
Trump’s visit was the excuse on Wednesday, but this was just the latest continuation of a row that Britons have long been having among themselves.
