Central London is preparing for an extraordinary day of overlapping public events this Saturday, as tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather to mark the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, a separate far-right rally convened by controversial activist Tommy Robinson gets underway nearby, and one of English football’s biggest annual fixtures kicks off just miles north. The convergence of three high-profile, potentially divisive gatherings has prompted London’s Metropolitan Police to launch what it describes as an unprecedented public order operation, deploying more than 4,000 officers to separate the opposing protest groups and prevent violent confrontation.
The annual Nakba Day march, organized by a broad coalition of advocacy groups led by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, commemorates a defining historical turning point for the Palestinian people. In 1948, as the state of Israel was established, more than 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their ancestral lands, and an estimated 13,000 more were killed by Zionist militias — a catastrophe that Palestinians have memorialized annually for decades. Organizers have issued clear guidance to participants, urging them to avoid any confrontation with the opposing far-right demonstration.
Robinson, the far-right organizer whose legal name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, will lead his own Unite the Kingdom rally on the same day. His last major event, held in September 2025, drew more than 150,000 attendees, but ended in chaos: far-right participants attacked police officers, chanted virulently anti-Muslim slogans, and left 23 people arrested on public order offences. This Saturday, Robinson’s rally is scheduled to proceed from Kingsway to Trafalgar Square, while the Nakba 78 rally, which was denied permission to march to Trafalgar Square after applying for the route, will travel from Kensington to Pall Mall. Police have structured the plans to keep the two groups on entirely separate routes to avoid clashes.
Adding to the complexity of the operation, the FA Cup final between Chelsea and Manchester City will kick off at 3pm at Wembley Stadium in north London, requiring additional police resourcing to manage crowds and security for the match.
To support the massive policing operation, officers have been granted extraordinary stop-and-search powers that allow them to search any individual without reasonable suspicion of a crime. For the first time ever in a UK public order policing operation, live facial recognition technology will also be deployed, though police confirmed the technology will not be used along the official march routes themselves.
In comments ahead of the protests, Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner James Harman outlined a hardline approach to provocative expression at the gatherings. “We are committed to taking a more assertive approach to chanting and the displaying of phrases on placards or banners that incite hatred or indicate support for terrorism or other forms of extremism,” Harman said Wednesday. He added that in recent months, multiple people have been arrested and charged for calling for intifada at previous protests, with a number of those cases currently working through the UK court system.
The 78th Nakba Day march marks the first major pro-Palestinian demonstration in the UK since Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s controversial April 30 statement calling for the prosecution of protesters who chant the phrase “globalise the intifada”, a move that drew widespread condemnation from pro-Palestinian advocacy groups across the country. Starmer made the comment in the wake of a April 29 stabbing attack in Golders Green, north London, where two Jewish men and one Muslim man were injured by an assailant who did not use the phrase during the attack. “If you stand alongside people who say globalise the intifada, you are calling for terrorism against Jews,” Starmer said at the time.
In response, more than 50 prominent British Palestinian and Arab public figures released a joint statement Thursday calling on Starmer to guarantee equal protection for Palestinian and Arab communities from hate crimes during Saturday’s demonstrations. “It is painful to feel that our fears are treated as secondary, or worse, that our peaceful commemoration is viewed only as a policing problem,” the statement read, highlighting widespread concern that the rights of peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters are being disproportionately restricted amid heightened political tensions.