> this is a Reform UK event

No, its a Tommy Robinson (not his real name) event. Whilst the venn diagram shows crossover in policy and beliefs, its not actually a reform demo.

I am uneasy about the facial recognition being used here. In terms of actual differences to how "oh shit this is going to be a violent one" protests are actually policed is not that much. There are mobile CCTV units that are deployed with plods being issued cameras to record people doing stupid shit.

However, given what happened last time he organised an event like this, I can see why it might be argued that its proportionate to deploy facial recognition. I still don't like it.

There has been no violence at any of the previous marches iirc. I think people assume there must have been because Starmer and co are foaming for violence...but there weren't.

Also, they have banned 11 people from getting visas because they were "agitators" and are deploying 4k police officers.

Just as a reminder though, the UK has people standing for political office who were convicted of terrorist offences, we have people here leading terrorist groups in other countries, we have people turning up illegally who are carrying out terrorist attacks in the UK regularly...it is a very odd situation.

One of the groups at the pro-Palestine protest is also funded by the same groups that fund Labour. There has obviously been quite a bit of violence at these events and adherents of this ideology have carried out terrorist attacks in the UK...but they are allied with a group that funds Labour so...all good.