He was wearing a crusader chainmail t-shirt with a St George’s Cross and she was a physio wearing a Union Flag backpack who wished to be referred to as Emmeline Pankhurst. They were in their sixties, married, and lived in Wickham, but had made a “rare trip to London” to go to the Montgomery statue opposite Downing Street and attend a vigil for Charlie Kirk.
Emmeline felt that she had spent all her life “sublimely complacent”. She had kept an idea that “we had British society, and we had our culture and our foundations”. But lately she had realised that “over the last 20 years people have been, like nibbling at the edges”. Or perhaps it started on the inside. “I think it’s been a hollowing out”.
They had liked watching Kirk debate. Emmeline told me, “It was free speech. He came across as very genuine and kind, a peaceable sort of chap who would have a conversation with anybody… He would go to people who he knew wouldn’t necessarily agree with him in order to stretch out a hand and communicate because that was the right way to go about things.” Her husband said that like Kirk, he was a Christian, and they shared the same principles and beliefs. They said that before being British they were Christian. “Christian first. Before anything. Nothing before that.”
The British political establishment condemned Kirk’s killing. Keir Starmer posted: “We must all be free to debate openly and freely without fear – there can be no justification for political violence.” Boris Johnson called Kirk “a shining new martyr to free speech.” Kemi Badenoch said the assassination was a blow to “open discourse, robust debate and peaceful dissent”. But free speech as we know and discuss it is an Enlightenment, liberal value, and at the vigil, the striking consensus was that Enlightenment thinking was too atrophied, corrupt and weak to defend itself. Powerful dangers were near, and scepticism, doubt and reason could not fend them off.
The crowd at Kirk’s vigil began to form a little before 6pm. It was still bright evening and the tone was subdued. There were baseball caps calling to make England, Britain and Europe great again. GB News and Rebel Media had sent TV crews. Three people shook my hand thinking I was Young Bob, a regular at Speaker’s Corner. James Orr, the Cambridge academic and friend of JD Vance, was present. So was Gawain Towler, Reform’s director of communications from 2019 to 2024, now serving on the governing board. He told me he had come because Kirk “didn’t hide away. He was well aware of the risks. He still did it because he believed it was the right way forward to discuss. Discourse, discourse, discourse. For that to be shattered is a concerning thing”. The sky swarmed with flags (UK, England and US). I saw Union Jack hats, suits, t-shirts, scarves and leggings. One young woman wore a mask painted with the St George’s Cross.
The largest flag of all, a Union Jack, hung on a wall, bore a quote from the Bible. Psalms 125:3: “For the scepter of the wicked shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong.”
As the evening darkened we moved to the green around the statue. The first speaker was Jack Ross, CEO of the UK branch of Kirk’s conservative organisation Turning Point. He praised Kirk for mainstreaming “patriotism, Christianity and conservatism across the world”.
After Ross’s speech, Young Bob called out, “Who is the King?” The crowd thundered, “Christ is King.” Bob then led the thousand-strong crowd in the Lord’s Prayer. After the prayer he urged: “We will continue onwards, Christian soldiers.”
The third speech was by Nick Tenconi, COO of Turning Point UK and the present leader of Ukip. He asked what the ideology fuelling hatred and murder was. Voices around me cried “the left”, “communism” and “Islam”. He called Kirk a “Christian martyr”, and said his murder would produce “thousands of new disciples of Christ”. With Kirk’s death, “patriots, we pick up our crosses”. He continued: “We’re patriots. We are at war with evil. We must destroy evil. … I say we are commanded as Christians not to make peace with evil but to destroy it. I say we show no mercy, no diplomacy, no surrender to those extremists and their anti-Christian, anti-conservative values and ideologies.” Tenconi quoted Julius Caesar: “Cowards die many times before their deaths but the valiant never taste of death but once!” He told the crowd, “You get called a Nazi, they spit at you, they try to stab you. When they come to kill you, they will be met with Christian courage!” There rose another muscular chorus of “Christ is king”.
“Emmeline Pankhurst” had described the deterioration of British culture and values as a simultaneous “nibbling in” and “hollowing out”. To all I spoke to, the nibbling in was Islam and the hollowing out was woke.
Before the speeches I had spoken to a 23-year-old film editor from Croydon who asked to be called “Kropotkin”. He had grown up a “far lefty” and come to politics by Noam Chomsky. He turned towards religion “after seeing what’s happening in Europe”. He explained, “the left say they’re against sexism and they’re pro-LGBTQ. But we’ve got a bunch down the road saying they’re pro-Palestine.” He had read the Koran and said anyone who had would see “a sexist book that specifically mentions Jewish and Christian people and says not to trust them.” He told me the safest country in Europe for women was Poland. “They accepted the most refugees in Europe? But who did they not accept? There’s one specific group who they did not accept. And that’s why they don’t have terrorist attacks, that’s why it’s the safest country in Europe for women.”
After the speeches, candles were passed around and the vigil marched quietly down to Parliament Square. Some people left their wreaths at Churchill’s statue, but it turned out the intended location was Mahatma Gandhi’s. As we walked I spoke to Kenny, who had moved to London from his native Edinburgh ten years ago. He had campaigned for Brexit by writing with chalk in Trafalgar Square. He told me: “I got harassed, called a Nazi and a fascist, just for being in favour of Leave.” That autumn he watched Donald Trump’s speeches against Hilary Clinton. He felt that Trump was getting “the exact same treatment from the left as I was”.
Kenny saw a link between the nibbling in and the hollowing out. Though himself an atheist, he felt that “Judeo-Christian values” were essential for the survival of Christian civilisation. The atheistic, “postmodern progressive left” were “moral relativists”. That was why they were “supporting Hamas and celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk”. He told me Kirk had warned that Islam was the sword the progressive left would use to slit the throat of America.
He asked me to be patient, because over the last three nights he had had only four hours sleep. Videos on X were “so gripping” as to have “a psychological psychosomatic effect on you”. The first “shocking piece of news was the slaying of Iryna Zarutska. She fled Ukraine for a safer life and then gets lynched for the colour of her skin by a black, er, I don’t want to call this person a man because no man would ever do that. A black criminal and thug and animal. And then the next day Charlie Kirk is killed in a video.” He said the Kirk video was “heartbreaking. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Both the politics and the religion present at the march are increasingly popular among young Brits. Kropotkin said: “I think [Christianity] is coming back because mental illness is on the rise… I think the reason people are turning to Christianity is because it reassures family values which help mental health in the long-term.” William had voted Reform and would again. “For young people, which Charlie was a big proponent of, this give them a path to go on. Myself included: even though I am 27, I’m lost. And I know so many young people in this country feel lost. I’ve got a friend who’s just turned 20 and he doesn’t know what to do with his life. Because there’s just so much confusion. He doesn’t know what to do next. And it should be the government’s responsibility to help its citizens, including its children, to find a way forward.”
Most of the crowd had dispersed soon after the march. A core of younger, more amateur participants stayed on at the Gandhi statue. After some speeches they all began to sing together. There was no running order and the songs were chosen by whoever started them loud enough. They sang Amazing Grace, the national anthems of the UK and the US, and a series of hymns including Jerusalem, Rule Britannia, and Land of Hope and Glory.
[See also: Oxford Union president-elect: “My words were no less insensitive than Charlie Kirk’s”]
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