The Daily Mail notes some curious rhetoric from Saturday’s “Unite the Kingdom” rally in London, which Tommy Robinson had billed as a “free speech festival”:
…speakers included New Zealand Christian fundamentalist Brian Tamaki, who told the crowd: ‘Christianity versus the rest. Islam, Hinduism, Bahai, Buddhism, whatever else you’re into — they’re all false. We gotta clean our countries up.
‘Ban any type of public expression in our Christian nation from other religions. Ban halal. Ban burqas. Ban mosques, temples, shrines. We don’t want those in our countries.’
I extracted the clip here, and the wider context is available here. Tamaki, who heads the neo-Pentecostal Destiny Church, is of Māori heritage; his act began with members of his church performing a haka, and after his speech they tore apart a series of flags, starting with a plain white one inscribed with “SECULAR HUMANISM” and “NO RELIGION”. This was followed by flags representing the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic State, and then the Palestinian national flag, described as representing “the Palestinian religion of lies and corruption” (1).
Tamaki was no outlier; David Campanale, reporting for Premier Christianity magazine, noted
There was a praise and worship band on the main platform, featuring Pastor Rikki Doolan (who was once caught on camera by an Al-Jazeera investigation offering to help launder dirty money), while a cleric in bishop’s garb led the assembled mass of humanity in the Lord’s Prayer.
…Tommy Robinson also picked up on the Christian messaging, telling the crowd, “There has been a globalist revolution. They have attacked the family. They’ve attacked Christianity. They’ve opened the borders. They’ve flooded our nations. We are the start of a counter revolution”.
He was followed by far-right and nationalist politicians from across Europe, including an AFD MP from Germany, the cancelled Romanian presidential candidate George Simion, who urged respect for “God, faith, family, homeland.” Dutch Catholic Eva Vlaardingerbroek spoke, as did representatives of extreme Belgian party Vlaams Belang, the Danish People’s Party and Polish MEP from Law and Justice, Dominik Tarczyński, who used to work at Westminster’s Catholic cathedral.
Campandale also noted the prevalence of “people wearing Crusader outfits”, and “flags with Bible verses such as ‘Jesus the Way, the Truth, the Life’, or ‘Jesus is Lord’ and ‘Turn back to God'”. However, “some people I interviewed in the crowd carrying Jesus flags said they were not Christians and would not be in church on Sunday”. His interviewing was cut short when he was chased off by two drunk men who had determined he was a “leftie”.
The “cleric in bishop’s garb” noted by Campandale was Bishop Ceirion Dewar of the Confessing Anglican Church (2), who was prominent in Robinson’s previous rally in July last year – this year, he was in the second row of march, and one photo shows him standing behind Robinson, Laurence Fox and Katie Hopkins. His presence was noted by Hope Not Hate, along with “Rev. Brett Murphy and Right Rev. Dr. David Nicholls from Morecambe, Lancashire”. The white-haired Nicholls, holding a wooden crozier and also wearing bishop’s garb, can be seen in a photograph published by the Daily Mail, although not identified by the paper (3).
One speaker not noted by Campandale was the Texas Republican Congressional candidate Valentina Gomez, who told the crowd that “we either fight now or we die, and we’re fighters, we are warriors of Jesus Christ”. Gomez characterised Keir Starmer as “the biggest paedophile-protector in history” and called for a new prime minister who will “send all of these rapist Muslims and dirty rugs back to their shariah nations”. One hostile social media interlocutor who afterwards reacted to an upload of her speech was dismissed as a “dirty pakistani Muslim”.
Christianity and Christian values as Britain’s culture were also emphasised by ex-SAS soldier and sometime TV presenter Ant Middleton, including the perennial complaint that “we can’t even fucking celebrate Christmas these days without offending someone” (4).
Footnotes
1. Tamaki also had a warning for the king:
King Charles is supposed to be the defender of the faith, he took a oath. He has not defended Christianity, he’s defended Islam. He’s defended other religions. And I’m telling you on behalf of Australia and New Zealand and [at least probably?] Canada… You do not come out and declare that Christianity must be the official religion of our countries again, then we’re going to pull away from the monarchy and we’ll form a Christian alliance, a legion of nations. We’ll join the United States of America.
This anti-Royalist strand of the populist right is worth keeping an eye on.
2. Dewar’s website says that he was ordained in 1999 and consecrated in 2005, but does say by whom. On LinkedIn, he describes himself as a Pentecostal, and posts on Facebook indicate that he is close to the American Prosperity Gospel preacher Mike Murdock (previously blogged here in relation to another British associate) and to various UK-based British-African church leaders. In 2012 he was involved in a financial dispute with an elderly woman, in which a court ordered him to pay £1000.
3. Murphy was ordained in the Anglican Church of Australia but moved over to the Free Church of England in 2023, which he managed to stay with for a whole 13 months before being dismissed. Nicholls, meanwhile, is described as a “Retired Bishop” of the Communion of International Catholic Communities (based in Rockwell, Texas): he is also variously Vice-Chancellor of St. Andrews Theological University International in India and Chief of Chaplains of the Pontifical Walsingham Guard of the United Roman-Ruthenian Church. Their Emmanuel Church in Morecambe describes itself as Anglican and as part of the Church of England, although it is actually under the oversight of Archbishop-Bishop Frederick Belmonte of the the Anglican Church in the Philippines (Traditional). This is part of Anglican Church Traditional, which is not to be confused with the Traditional Anglican Church.
4. Ant Middleton also used his speech to announce his intention to stand for mayor of London, although this is a subject he has already referred to frequently on social media. There, he cites Sadiq Kahn’s ethnicity as a reason not not vote for him: he argues that “1st, 2nd & 3rd generation immigrants SHOULD NOT hold top tier government positions” and that “Our Capital City of our Christian country needs to be run by a native Brit with generational Christian values, principles and morals coursing through their veins”. Earlier this year, he was disqualified as a company director over £1 million unpaid tax; in March, he promised to “release my side of the story tomorrow”, but as far as I know it has not yet appeared.
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