One Day in London The Almighty Gob | Published 29 March 2026.
Three scenes from Saturday, 28 March 2026. The contradictions write themselves.
[The Palestine Coalition march converged with the Together Alliance route on 28 March 2026. The placards tell a story the organisers' press releases do not.]
At an anti-racism march, somebody chanted “Zionists go home.”
That is not an interpretation. That is what happened. The Together Alliance brought half a million people — or fifty thousand, depending on whose count you trust — from Park Lane to Whitehall, backed by unions, civil society groups, Extinction Rebellion, Amnesty International, Paloma Faith, Sir Lenny Henry, and Zack Polanski condemning Nigel Farage from a stage. Around five hundred organisations. More than a hundred coaches from across the country. The stated purpose: to resist hate, division, and authoritarianism.
A separate march organised by the Palestine Coalition converged with the Together Alliance route before both groups formed up on Whitehall.
And then, on a London street, pro-Israel counter-protesters were met with chants of “Zionists go home” and “Settlers, go back home.”
Paul Mason was there. Paul Mason — who has spent years positioning himself as a serious voice of the serious left — was reported to have denounced the chants as antisemitism. Darren Grimes clipped it and posted it. Hen Mazzig wrote about it. The organisers stressed their anti-racism focus. The police confirmed twenty-five arrests across the day. Eighteen of those happened not on the march itself, but around the corner — which is where this piece ends up.
The police estimate was fifty thousand. The organisers said half a million.
Someone at an anti-racism march told Jewish people to go home.
The march was against hate. The chant was at Jews. Both things happened on the same afternoon, on the same street, under the same banners.
The organisers did not plan this. They are not responsible for every person who showed up. That is true. It is also true that this is what the footage shows, and footage does not negotiate.
Elsewhere in London, a Green Party MP was celebrating.
Hannah Spencer — thirty-four years old, first elected in February, the Green Party’s first MP in the north of England, known as Hannah the Plumber — had her Commons debut. She marked it at Shakeshuka, a restaurant in Marylebone. The owner, Abdul Haleem Kherallah, called her the youngest and most beautiful MP.
The restaurant had a history. Footage had previously circulated of patrons inside Shakeshuka cheering as Iranian missiles struck Tel Aviv and Haifa in June 2025. Those strikes killed twenty-eight people.
Pro-Israel critics found the footage. They posted it alongside Spencer’s celebration. Her supporters said the backlash was an attack. The Green Party had not responded by the time evening came.
Spencer had spoken at the Together Alliance’s Greater Manchester event on 8 March. She told the crowd it was about a movement of people coming together, finding common ground, defeating politics of hatred and division. She was then chased to a police car by a group of men.
She went to a restaurant. The restaurant had cheered missile strikes that killed twenty-eight people. She posted about it. By evening, no one had said anything.
Hannah Spencer is, by most measures, exactly what British politics is supposed to celebrate. A working-class woman who left school, qualified as a plumber and a plasterer, stood for election, and won. She beat Reform UK. She made history. She gave a maiden speech about looking after each other, whoever we are.
The restaurant footage is what it is.
Outside New Scotland Yard on Saturday morning, eighteen people were arrested for holding signs.
Not weapons. Signs.
The Met had told them, in February, following a High Court ruling that the government’s proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful and disproportionate, that arrests were unlikely. The High Court’s three judges had found that the nature and scale of Palestine Action’s activities did not meet the level required to justify calling them a terrorist organisation. The proscription, they said, was unlawful.
The government appealed. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she disagreed with the ruling and intended to fight it. The court granted a stay, meaning the ban remained technically in force pending that appeal, scheduled for 28 and 29 April at the Court of Appeal. The Met then reversed its February position. Deputy Assistant Commissioner James Harman explained: the law must be enforced as it is at the time, not as it might be at a future date.
So on Saturday, eighteen people were arrested outside the Metropolitan Police’s own headquarters for holding cardboard signs.
One woman, as she was led away by two officers, said: “I’m being arrested for holding a cardboard sign, whereas our government feels the need to sell weapons and use our airbases to commit genocide in Palestine.”
A court said the ban was unlawful. The government appealed. The police reversed course. On Saturday, eighteen people were arrested for holding signs outside New Scotland Yard. The appeal is heard in April.
Nearly 2,800 people have been arrested under terrorism legislation since the proscription came into force in July 2025, according to campaign group Defend Our Juries, contributing to a six hundred and sixty per cent rise in UK terrorism arrests in the year to September 2025. Sixteen people have reportedly lost their jobs for attending protests. The Chief Magistrate has paused hundreds of related prosecutions until after the appeal. Defend Our Juries has called a mass event at Trafalgar Square on 11 April.
The maximum sentence for expressing support for Palestine Action is fourteen years.
The cardboard signs said things like “I support Palestine Action” and “I oppose genocide.”
Three scenes, one Saturday. A march against hatred where Jewish people were told to go home. An MP celebrating her Commons debut at a restaurant where customers had cheered the deaths of twenty-eight people. Eighteen people arrested outside a police station for holding signs, under a law a court had already ruled unlawful.
The contradictions are not hidden. They are not buried in small print. They are on video, on record, in official statements, in the footage you can watch tonight on your phone.
Make of that what you will. The day made itself.
The Almighty Gob is a Bristol-based publication covering politics, power, and the gap between what institutions say and what they actually do.
Sources.
Together Alliance march — attendance figures, route, coalition size, Palestine Coalition convergence: GB News, 28 March 2026 — https://www.gbnews.com/news/london-together-alliance-march-andy-burnham-anti-far-right | ITV News, 28 March 2026 — https://www.itv.com/news/2026-03-28/half-a-million-gather-in-london-for-biggest-anti-far-right-demo-say-organisers | Al Jazeera, 28 March 2026 — https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/28/hundreds-of-thousands-march-through-london-in-stand-against-the-far-right | Together Alliance official page — https://www.togetheralliance.org.uk/march
Together Alliance march — 25 arrests, 18 Palestine Action: Manchester Times, 28 March 2026 — https://www.manchestertimes.com/news/national/protesters-rally-in-london-against-uk-far-right-rise/article_ae7e10aa-6d13-5140-bc91-b28322f977c4.html
Hannah Spencer MP — biography, by-election, maiden speech: Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Spencer | LBC News — https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/new-green-party-mp-hannah-spencer-parliament-5HjdTjg_2/ | Green Party — https://greenparty.org.uk/2026/03/12/green-mp-hannah-spencer-makes-her-first-commons-speech/
Hannah Spencer — Manchester Together Alliance event, police car incident, 8 March 2026: ITV News Granada — https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2026-03-09/hannah-wont-be-silenced-after-green-mp-targeted-in-manchester
Shakeshuka restaurant — watch party footage, June 2025: JNS — https://www.jns.org/world/london-restaurant-becomes-celebration-venue-for-iranian-strikes-on-israel | Israel Hayom — https://www.israelhayom.com/2025/06/24/london-restaurant-becomes-celebration-venue-for-iranian-strikes-on-israel/
Iranian missile strikes on Israel, June 2025 — 28 killed: Times of Israel, named victims — https://www.timesofisrael.com/these-are-the-28-victims-killed-in-iranian-missile-attacks-during-the-12-day-conflict/ | Al Jazeera, Twelve-Day War by numbers — https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/26/visualising-12-days-of-the-israel-iran-conflict
Palestine Action — High Court ruling, February 2026: NPR — https://www.npr.org/2026/02/13/nx-s1-5713346/britain-court-palestine-action-ban | Al Jazeera — https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/13/uk-court-says-palestine-action-ban-unlawful-what-does-the-verdict-mean
Palestine Action — Met Police U-turn, DAC Harman statement, appeal timeline: Metropolitan Police official statement — https://news.met.police.uk/news/met-issues-revised-position-on-palestine-action-support-507641 | The British Eye — https://thebritisheye.com/2026/03/27/met-police-to-resume-arrests-for-palestine-action-support/ | ITV News London — https://www.itv.com/news/london/2026-03-26/the-metropolitan-police-will-resume-arresting-palestine-action-protestors
Palestine Action — 18 arrested outside New Scotland Yard, woman’s statement, 2,800 arrests, 660% rise, job losses, April 11 event: Al Jazeera, 28 March 2026 — https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/28/palestine-action-supporters-arrested-as-londons-met-police-reverse-policy | LBC News — https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/met-police-palestine-action-5HjdWzh_2/ | Middle East Eye — https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/met-police-accused-reversing-palestine-action-policy-previous-arrests