This has been the subject of some debate. Tommy Robinson says 3 million. The police say 150,000. That’s quite the discrepancy.
Oddly enough, I am in a rather good position to judge. I was there. Did I count them all? No, I didn’t. What I did do, however, was skulk around the back. Oh, and do some maths.
The plan was for everybody to assemble in Stamford St which, for those who don’t know, is a street in South London between Blackfriars and Waterloo Stations. Stamford St was packed and there was an overflow into Southwark Road, Blackfriars Road and Blackfriars Bridge. I was right at the back of the overflow into Southward Road. I would say that extended for – if I am being generous – 100m. (My apologies for using Nazi units but I can’t be arsed to do the conversion.)
Whitehall is 700m long. Stamford St is about the same length. So with the overflows we get 1000m of march. Stamford St is maybe 30m wide. So we get the whole march – I didn’t see many late comers – in 30,000m².
So how many people per metre? I understand the rule of thumb is 4. For comparison, Wembley manages to 90,000 people sat down in 90,000m². Four standing in the same space as one seated? Bit of a squeeze but possible.
So, 30,000 times 4 gets us to 120,000.
I’m with the police.
Next question: does it matter?
If you look at the aerial footage (about 40 mins worth) and rough grid it you get to several hundred K at its maximum extent. About the same size march as the CountySide Alliance. So 300K+ would be ballpark. Maybe even 400K. Extended sections of those march crowds are stadium density. Which really bumps up the numbers. Most marches are much lower density crowds.
The “counter march” on the other hand is short and straggly. Less than 10K
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gRMJHPy9Rs
In re: next question: It does not matter as far as normal peaceful political processes are concerned. Even if it were millions outside Whitehall, there is no indication that those in government care other than to possibly plan to incarcerate some examples to intimidate the others. What I find most noteworthy is the dead silence. Granting I am across the ocean and we do not get a lot of brit news, and we are admittedly involved in our own political assassination at the moment; but there is something missing.
As far as I can tell not one leading brit politician has stood up for those brits defending their country. Not one. I see no one in the political machinery of britain who cares and who will speak up for what is obviously a major portion of the brit population. This may be because they have all been co-opted. It may be because the functional voiding of what passed for a bill of rights and the fear of your newest population cohort whose rights, whims, etc. now officially outweigh the rights of brits there has your elites all intimidated. But normal political processes will not serve to protect your country.
Subotai Bahadur
I believe there is a body of knowledge about how to get a pretty accurate count of a large body of people, and it sounds like Patrick is conversant with it. However — he mentions latecomers — it seems to me that gatherings of this nature, protest as a big day out, will have some unknown number of early-leavers too. Not to mention non-participants who just happen to be in the area, merchants, the authorities themselves, and rubberneckers. So the wild discrepancies in estimated attendance are perhaps not all ideologicallly-driven; everyone is trying to measure a very non-static phenomenon. That said, one wd think some combination of drones and AI would be developed by now, that could get a very accurate count – at least, of the numbers on the street at one given moment.