Some six thousand supporters of the Democratic Football Lads Alliance marched through central London yesterday, outnumbering anti-fascists by around ten or twenty to one. Speakers included Milo Yiannopoulous and Tommy Robinson, while spotted in the crowd were members of the London Brigade of the Ulster Defence Association, the Racial Volunteer Force (a split from Combat 18), and Generation Identity, as well as the FLA and DFLA’s more familiar constituency of football supporters organised through fans’ networks, often without any previous history of mobilisation by the right.

The event was billed as a day for free speech. But these are politics which are repeatedly allowed a public platform. If there was a secret Islamic conspiracy limiting the far-right’s access to Newsnight or Question Time then it has not been very successful. Neither Milo nor Robinson ever owned their own newspapers or television stations, rather they have been able to build up…