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Two incidents at the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally on 16 May 2026: performers staging the removal of the niqab and burqa on the rally’s branded UTK stage before tens of thousands, and a placard reading ‘FUCK ISLAM / CHRIST IS KING’ carried openly through Westminster.

This campaign asks two things, on the same principle: that the “full force of the law” standard the Home Secretary and CPS have publicly committed to this fortnight be applied evenly to anti-Muslim hate; and that newsrooms which described the day’s two demonstrations as ‘rival protests’ correct that framing on the public record. Both are demands for consistency in existing rules, not for new restrictions on speech or on the press.

Three lawful channels: MPs (parliamentary accountability), police (True Vision, the national hate-crime portal), and the press (ITV News auto-send, plus a self-serve pack for IPSO, Ofcom, Readers’ Editor and Standards Editor routes).

Discipline rule (please read)

Do not name, identify, track or publicly target the woman with the placard or the people on stage. Identifying suspects is the police’s job, not the public’s. Do not organise or amplify pile-ons, doxxing, or threats. Report the conduct factually through lawful channels and let the system act. A campaign that stays clean is a campaign that cannot be dismissed.

Live tally
emails sent in this campaign · and counting

Read the full analysis: The legal framework, the selective-enforcement test, and the honest counter-arguments.

Read

Support us. Eight personalised submissions in one click: your MP, the BBC complaints API, an IPSO complaint against The Standard, plus editorial complaints to ITV News, the New York Times, Reuters, France 24 and AP. Each one costs us money to send.

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Step 1: write to your MP and to the press, in one click

Enter your details below (including your UK postcode for the MP auto-lookup, and the UK address fields the BBC complaints API requires) and we will send eight personalised submissions:

  • Your MP, putting three specific questions to the Home Secretary and the Metropolitan Police about equal application of hate-crime law.
  • BBC News, via the BBC Complaints API, citing Editorial Guidelines Sections 3 (Accuracy) and 4 (Impartiality). Headline: ‘Tens of thousands join rival marches in London’.
  • The Standard, via IPSO, citing Editors’ Code Clause 1 (Accuracy). Headline: ‘Met makes dozens of arrests as tens of thousands take part in rival protests in London’.
  • ITV News, citing Ofcom Broadcasting Code Section 5. Headline: ‘Dozens arrested at rival London protests with 4,000 officers on duty’.
  • The New York Times, to the Standards Editor / Corrections Desk, citing the Guidelines on Integrity. Headline: ‘Rival Protests Take Place in London, With a Major Security Effort’.
  • Reuters, to the Editorial Standards / Fact Check desk, citing the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Headline: ‘Tens of thousands march in London in separate immigration, pro-Palestinian protests’.
  • France 24, to the médiateur (editorial ombudsman), citing ‘duelling events’ / ‘rival rally marking Nakba Day’ framing.
  • Associated Press, to Editorial Standards, citing the AP News Values and Principles and the syndicated ‘rival rallies’ / ‘two rival demonstrations’ framing.

Each complaint is anchored to a specific demonstrable point under that outlet’s own published standards, not headline-word policing. Step 2 below (self-serve) covers True Vision, the police hate-crime portal.

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Your details
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Review & send
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Done

How this works

  1. Enter your details below
  2. Verify your email with a one-time code
  3. We send the email on your behalf — done!

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Postal address (required only for the BBC complaint)

These fields are needed only for the BBC complaint. Fill them in and your BBC complaint is filed; leave them blank and no BBC complaint is filed, while every other complaint still sends as normal. We pass them straight to the BBC's official complaints API; we don't store them. Outside the UK? Choose your location below and we'll only ask for the fields the BBC needs (no postcode or phone).

We'll send a 6-digit code to verify your email before proceeding.

Step 2 (do this yourself)

File with True Vision (police hate-crime portal)

True Vision (report-it.org.uk) is the police-run national portal for hate-crime reports. We can’t auto-submit there because it is a web form, so this step is in your hands. We’ve prepared the evidence files and copy-paste templates below. You can report as a witness (from footage and photograph) even if you weren’t at the rally.

The two-minute version

  1. Download Exhibit A and Exhibit B below. Keep the originals unedited.
  2. Open report-it.org.uk in a new tab. Choose the option to report a hate crime as a witness.
  3. For each incident, copy the template below and paste it into the ‘what happened’ field. Fill in the bracketed items (date, time, your details).
  4. Indicate that you have photo and/or video evidence and that you can provide it to the investigating officer. The form may not accept large video; if not, state that the file is available on request.
  5. Save the incident reference number True Vision gives you. You’ll need it for any follow-up.
  6. Optional but recommended: also call 101 (non-emergency police). If something is happening now or there is a threat to safety, call 999.
Open True Vision (report-it.org.uk)

Exhibit A

Placard photograph

Placard displayed at the Unite the Kingdom rally reading 'FUCK ISLAM' above 'CHRIST IS KING'.

Use this with Template 2 (placard). Keep the original file unedited; don’t crop or filter the copy you give the police.

Download Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Stage-mockery video

Use this with Template 1 (stage mockery). The file carries the event’s own on-screen UTK branding. Keep the original unedited.

Download Exhibit B

Template 1 (stage mockery)

Paste into True Vision ‘what happened’ for Incident 1

I am reporting a religiously motivated hate incident that I witnessed in footage from the "Unite the Kingdom" rally held in central London on 16 May 2026, organised by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (who uses the name Tommy Robinson).

On the event's official, branded stage, performer(s) appeared dressed in the niqab or burqa, a religious face-veil garment worn by some Muslim women as an expression of Islamic faith. The performer(s) gestured at the audience. The crowd, numbering in the tens of thousands, reportedly chanted for the garment to be removed, and it was then removed as a staged act for the crowd's entertainment.

I perceive this to be conduct motivated by hostility towards Muslims based on their religion. It was the deliberate public ridicule of a religious practice and of the Muslim women who observe it, performed from an organised platform before a very large audience and disseminated online.

I am asking that this be recorded as a religiously motivated hate incident, and assessed for any religiously aggravated public-order offence under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (on a Public Order Act 1986 section 4A or section 5 basis) and any other applicable offence, taking into account the organised context of the event, the size and reaction of the audience, the timing during a period of heightened community tension, and the wider online dissemination of the footage, in line with current CPS guidance on signs, symbols and conduct at protests issued on 15 May 2026.

I have video evidence of the stage segment, which I can provide. I am not identifying any individual. I am reporting the conduct and asking the police to assess it.

Template 2 (placard)

Paste into True Vision ‘what happened’ for Incident 2

I am reporting a religiously motivated hate incident from the "Unite the Kingdom" rally in central London on 16 May 2026, organised by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (who uses the name Tommy Robinson).

A printed placard was displayed openly in the crowd reading the words "FUCK ISLAM" above the words "CHRIST IS KING". It was held up and visible to other people present at a large public demonstration in the Westminster and Parliament Square area.

I perceive this to be conduct motivated by hostility towards Muslims based on their religion. I am asking that it be recorded as a religiously motivated hate incident and assessed for any offence under the Public Order Act 1986 (section 5 or section 4A) in its religiously aggravated form under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, having regard to whether the display was threatening or abusive and was within sight of people likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress, and to the demonstration of religious hostility, the context of the organised event, the timing during heightened community tension, and the wider online circulation of the image, consistent with current CPS guidance on signs and symbols at protests.

I understand the police and CPS will assess whether the threshold for any offence is met and that freedom of expression is a relevant consideration. I am asking only that this be recorded and assessed under the same standard applied to comparable conduct targeting any other community.

I have a photograph of the placard as displayed, which I can provide. I am not identifying any individual. I am reporting the conduct.

Evidence handling, briefly

  • Submit the originals unedited. Edited media is weaker evidence and can be challenged.
  • Note where you obtained each file when you submit (for example: ‘downloaded from this campaign page on [date]’).
  • Do not post the evidence publicly to ‘identify’ anyone. Public identification campaigns can be unlawful, can be wrong, and discredit the report.
  • Keep your incident reference number when True Vision gives you one. You need it for any follow-up.

About this campaign

On Saturday 16 May 2026, tens of thousands gathered in central London for the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally organised by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (who uses the name Tommy Robinson). The Metropolitan Police estimated around 60,000 attendees and deployed around 4,000 officers; 31 arrests were made by mid-afternoon. The Prime Minister called the organisers’ message “peddling hatred and division” and described some participants as “convicted thugs and racists”.

For the first time, organisers were made legally responsible for ensuring invited speakers did not break hate-speech law. In the same fortnight, the Crown Prosecution Service issued updated guidance to speed up hate-crime charging decisions and to assess chants, banners, signs and symbols at protests in context, and the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, publicly stated that anyone “spreading hate or committing acts of violence will face the full force of the law”.

The state has therefore demonstrated, this fortnight, both the machinery and the political will to move fast on hate at protests. The campaign’s ask is narrow and answerable: apply that same machinery, evenly, to the staged ridicule of Muslim women’s religious dress and to the placard carried through Westminster.

A note on free expression: the Public Order Act 1986 section 29J explicitly protects ridicule, insult and abuse of religion. The campaign respects that. It does not ask for that line to move. It asks only that the existing law, including the religiously aggravated public-order offences under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the perception-based hate-incident recording duty, be applied without favour.

Some of this conduct may not result in charges. That is fine. The recorded-incident data, the equal-treatment principle, and the political accountability of ministers are legitimate ends in themselves and do not depend on a conviction.