Critical briefing: Unite the Kingdom
What you need to know about the Unite the Kingdom march on May 16
American MAGA influencer Valentina Gomez has been blocked from entering the UK on the grounds that her presence “would not be conducive to the public good”. These powers are rarely invoked but were last in the news when Kanye West — the rapper who had released, and subsequently retracted, the pro-Hitler song “HH” — was excluded from British shores. (Critics argue that these decisions are too arbitrary and censorious.)
Ms Gomez was born in Colombia and moved with her family to the US when she was a child. She has become notorious on social media for stunts like simulating the execution of an illegal immigrant.
Gomez has threatened to arrive in Britain, with American veterans, on a small boat. “If they dare to arrest me, I guarantee you that the White House will get involved,” Ms Gomez has claimed. How she plans to navigate her small boat across the Atlantic is a mystery.
Gomez was planning to attend a “Unite the Kingdom” rally in London on May 16. These demonstrations, hosted by Tommy Robinson, are described by their organisers as having been “created to give UK citizens a platform to come together, connect, and stand united during a period of significant national change”. This tends to entail anti-Islam, anti-mass migration, anti-government, and pro-Christian nationalism messaging.
Somewhere between 110,000 and 150,000 people attended a United the Kingdom demonstration in September 2025. Some reported attending, according to the BBC, because “we should in our own country be able to say what we want”, and because “the government are so far detached in their ivory towers”. Others threw projectiles at the police. Elon Musk addressed the crowd over video, with other speakers including Katie Hopkins, Lawrence Fox and Éric Zemmour. Writing for The Critic, Angus Kincaid argued that despite “deplorable remarks” and the occasional “yobbo”, the event should be seen as “an outlet for pent-up frustration”.
Aside from Tommy Robinson, the veteran anti-Islam activist who has been in and out of jail on charges ranging from assault to contempt of court, the most famous person to have announced their participation in the May event is reportedly Sharon Osbourne, the bereaved wife of Ozzy Osbourne. The charity Centrepoint has already cut ties with Mrs Osbourne, who has been a vocal defender of Israel.
Unite the Kingdom has had links to Advance UK, Ben Habib’s right-wing party, which recently earned 0.4 per cent of the vote at the Gorton and Denton by-election. Mr Habib was a speaker at the Unite the Kingdom event in September 2025.
It is exceedingly unlikely that Unite the Kingdom will have any material association with Reform UK, with Tommy Robinson reposting messages that call Nigel Farage “Controlled Opposition”. Farage has said that Robinson would not be welcome in Reform.
The tone is decidedly, if inchoately, radical
Mr Robinson has made a special point of emphasising the pro-Christian nature of the rally. “4 Nations, 1 Kingdom, under God,” he has declared. The tone is decidedly, if inchoately, radical. “British revolution is coming,” Robinson has said. His allies have announced that the rallies will attempt to force out Prime Minister Keir Starmer. (It is of course possible, as the Mandelson affair swirls on, that Keir Starmer will not be prime minister in May.)
Interestingly, a pro-Palestine demonstration will also take place in London on May 16. Pro-Palestine demonstrators planning their annual commemoration of the Nakba — the mass expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 — have accused the Met Police of being biased against them after their preferred route was rejected. Sadiq Khan has been encouraged to intervene.
“We need every anti-racist, anti-fascist and all people of good conscience to be with us in London,” Stand Up to Racism, a project of far left organisations like the infamous Socialist Workers Party, has announced. The potential for violence between the two camps is obvious. (Police, after all, have also faced attacks at pro-Palestine rallies.) This will be a test of the increasingly ineffectual Metropolitan Police.
In the aftermath of her exclusion from the UK, Valentina Gomez has called Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood a “dirty Pakistani Muslim”. It seems improbable that patriotic Britons will rise up to defend a Colombian-American woman who plans to flout the law. Beneath the theatrics, though, popular grievances will continue to boil.
