Local Green Party questions Westminster council leader’s comments on marches

The following is an open letter from the West Central London Green Party to Paul Swaddle, leader of Westminster City Council and Conservative Party councillor for Regent’s Park Ward. It concerns his comments about two marches that took place in London on 16 May.

Dear Cllr Paul Swaddle OBE,

18th May 2026

We, as residents of the City of Westminster and members of the local Green Party, are writing to you with concerns about your comments on the two protests that took place on Saturday the 16th of May.

We are disturbed by the stark contrast in your approach to the ‘Nakba 78’ march and the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march. In your letter to the Home Secretary, you began by making gestures towards both protests, but then you swiftly transitioned to calling for a moratorium solely on the pro-Palestine marches. You clearly forgot to mention the harm that the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march caused in September, and the risk that it posed this time round.

Last September, we saw a large range of unacceptable and racist behaviour at the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ protest, with officers severely injured, Islamophobic chants and Elon Musk saying that attendees must “fight back or […] die”. Immigrants and people of colour were made to feel unsafe in the city that they call home. This year, we saw much of the same.

This movement is clearly one that inflames hatred against Muslims and immigrants. On Saturday, we saw activists take to the stage at the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ protest, mocking women who exercise their full right to wear Burqas. We saw people, including police officers, being racially abused, and we heard Tommy Robinson, the organiser of this march, talking about his desire to ‘stop Islam’.

We ask that you retract your statement that the ‘Nakba 78’ march and other similar peaceful marches “send damaging messages that extremist opinions are acceptable”, and that you rescind the labelling of protests in support of Palestine as “hate marches”. The allegation that tens of thousands of Britons of all faiths and none, including many Westminster residents, are either extremists or promoters of extremism is a baseless and inflammatory one.

We condemn your imbalanced approach to these two marches and question your intention when you specifically call for the suspension of protests in support of Palestine and not the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ protests. We are unfortunately left with the conclusion that you operate on a hierarchy of racism, where hatred against Muslims is ignored, and broad accusations of anti-semitism are used in order to crack down on the right to protest.

In our view, the double standards you are operating on and the blind-eye turned to racist behaviour calls into question your suitability as council leader of a borough filled with residents from all different communities.

We look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely,

West Central London Green Party

Featured image via Brook Mitchell / Getty Images and Carl Court / Getty Images