Seen from its former empire, riots in Great Britain may look wretchedly atavistic. Not to speak of a tiny bit of Schadenfreude. For the Times of India, the recent Unite the Kingdom rally and riots have turned London “into a stage for Britain’s anxieties.”

And not just anxieties. While many protesters remained peaceful, there also was, in best old English tradition, some energetic fighting: Kicks, fists, and bottles flew as if at a football match or late at night outside a not-yet-gentrified pub around last call. There ended up being 26 police officers injured and 25 protesters arrested. For now. The authorities have promised to catch even more. Clearly so as to make an example of the uppity ruffians and keep the rest of the common people in check. That, too, is good old English tradition.

Organized by “far-right activist” (The Hindu) Tommy Robinson (aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), Unite the Kingdom was billed as a “free speech” demonstration, but it’s real and explicit core agenda was a protest against immigration and Islam (or rather the daft, mean caricature of Islam that Robinson and his followers propagate).

Still a fairly young man at 42 years of age, Robinson has a well-known and ingloriously petty criminal record: assault, passport and mortgage fraud; yet another conviction, for contempt of court, was arguably political. He also has stacked up serious credentials as a right-wing influencer, organizer, and troublemaker. None of that, however, has stopped him or is ever likely to do him any political harm. On the contrary, just as with other recent break-out figures – Trump in the forefront – the very deserved bad-boy rep is only making him stronger.

Unfortunately, even Robinson’s aggressive siding with genocidal Israel (his really unforgivable crime, in my book) – a pattern now common with the far right in the West – and plausible assessments that he........

© RT.com