A far-right rally in London on 16 May called for Islam to be removed from 'every single place of authority,' with attendees dressed as medieval crusaders. The event, organized by Tommy Robinson, was deliberately held on the same day as a Palestinian Nakba commemoration, exposing what a Middle East Eye analysis describes as a 'homeland crusade' connecting the removal of Muslims from the holy land to their removal from Europe.
The rally's speakers were explicit. 'Islam is our real enemy,' one said. Another called for British men to 'get fight ready, because a fight is coming to this country.' The crowd, some carrying large wooden crosses and wearing crusader costumes, chanted 'Christ is King.'
That imagery is not accidental. According to a Middle East Eye analysis, it reflects the persistence of a civilisational logic that framed the post-9/11 'war on terror' not merely as a security campaign but as a conflict between Islam and Christendom. Former US President George W Bush described the campaign as a 'crusade.' British Conservative MP Sir Teddy Taylor used the same term.
Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit, referred to bin Laden as a 'modern Saladin,' invoking the Muslim commander who fought the Crusaders. Former Pentagon official William G Boykin went further. He called for 'warriors of God's kingdom,' declaring: 'We are a nation of believers.' In such rhetoric, the West is imagined not as a geopolitical alliance but as Christendom in contemporary form.
The Middle East Eye report argues that this civilisational logic extended beyond military intervention into an ideological project aimed at reshaping Islam itself. Islam was increasingly presented as fundamentally incompatible with 'western values.' Alongside invasions and occupations came sustained efforts to cultivate a 'moderate Islam' compatible with liberal political norms. Particular attention focused on political Islam.
Movements that challenged the Eurocentric order imposed across much of the Muslim world after the collapse of the Ottoman sultanate were targeted. The reforms that followed displaced Islam from political authority and established liberalism as the dominant ideological framework. Political Islam emerged, in part, as a response to that transformation.
The war on terror was never confined to battlefields abroad. By the early 2010s, it had developed a domestic front across western societies through the growing focus on so-called 'home-grown extremism.' Counter-extremism policy became central to this shift. Muslims—whether citizens, migrants, refugees, or residents—were increasingly constructed as potential threats from within.
Visible expressions of Muslim identity became objects of suspicion. The hijab, mosque attendance, political activism, and religious conservatism all fell under scrutiny. The wider public was encouraged to internalise the logic of surveillance itself.
Citizens were urged to monitor, identify and report signs of 'radicalisation' within Muslim communities. Ordinary civic life became an extension of the security apparatus. From this perspective, the far right's portrayal of Islam as a civilisational threat did not emerge in isolation.
It was cultivated through official discourses that normalised the idea that Muslims constituted a latent danger within the nation. The far-right vigilante who imagines himself as the defender of the homeland has a clear precursor. He mirrors the citizen-subject produced by counter-extremism policy: the citizen encouraged to police Muslim life in the name of national security.
State security power did not remain confined to institutions. It circulated outward into society itself, where it could reappear in vigilante form. Far-right mobilisation should not be understood as an aberration external to mainstream politics.
It is produced through the very political and security frameworks from which it claims to defend the nation. Even the far right's 'great replacement' theory mirrors the civilisational logic of the war on terror. The imagined threat of 'Eurabia'—a Europe supposedly overwhelmed by Muslim migration—is framed as the displacement of Christianity and 'western civilisation' itself.
What far-right discourse calls 'demographic jihad' is cast as an existential struggle for the survival of Christendom. It is therefore unsurprising that far-right movements increasingly adopt crusader symbolism openly. Before being banned from Facebook, Britain First used the slogan 'The New Crusade Begins' alongside medieval crusader imagery and the battle cry 'Deus vult'—'God wills it.'
The Christchurch attacker, Brenton Tarrant, framed his massacre as part of a centuries-long war between Islam and Europe. Anders Behring Breivik filled his manifesto with crusader imagery and Biblical references. Organisations such as the English Defence League and Pegida have similarly made Christian symbolism central to their political identity.
The San Diego mosque attack, carried out by shooters who framed their actions as part of a 'New Crusade,' illustrates how crusading narratives continue to animate contemporary far-right extremism. Far-right politics is not simply nationalism with Christian aesthetics attached to it. It is the domestic front of a broader civilisational struggle.
History makes this easier to recognise. The medieval Crusades were not fought only in Jerusalem. Crusading violence also unfolded within Europe itself against Muslims, Jews, pagans and Christian heretics.
The Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula formed part of the same historical process: the purification of Christian territory through expulsion, conquest and forced conversion. The danger posed by this modern homeland crusade is not theoretical. As violence escalates across the Middle East—from the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, and the confrontation with Iran—its domestic counterpart also threatens escalation.
Its ambitions are already visible: deportations, denationalisation, expanded surveillance, restrictions on Muslim political expression, and bans targeting hijab, halal practices and mosques. Emboldened by years of securitisation, the far right increasingly sees itself as carrying out a historic duty. Recent developments in Britain—from the electoral rise of Reform UK to the far-right violence that followed the 2024 Southport stabbings—suggest this trajectory is no longer confined to the fringes.
What may emerge is not simply sporadic racist violence. It is a vigilante politics authorised by the language of national security itself: a domestic inquisition carried out in the name of defending civilisation, the nation, and Christendom. Key Takeaways: - A London rally organised by Tommy Robinson on 16 May featured explicit calls to remove Islam from authority and attendees dressed as crusaders, deliberately coinciding with a Palestinian Nakba commemoration. - The far right's 'great replacement' theory and 'demographic jihad' narratives cast Muslim migration as an existential struggle for Christendom, connecting domestic anti-Muslim politics to military campaigns abroad.
Why It Matters: The explicit use of crusader imagery and rhetoric at a mainstream far-right rally signals a dangerous fusion of religious war narratives with domestic politics. This legitimises violence against Muslim communities under the guise of defending civilisation, echoing historical patterns of internal crusades that targeted minorities within Europe. The connection between counter-extremism policies and far-right vigilantism reveals how state security frameworks can produce the very threats they claim to combat.
What comes next is already unfolding. The electoral rise of parties like Reform UK and the violence following the Southport stabbings indicate the homeland crusade is moving from the fringes into mainstream politics. Watch for escalating calls for deportations, expanded surveillance, and bans on Muslim religious practices—all framed not as bigotry but as national security imperatives.
The Middle East Eye analysis warns that as violence escalates abroad, its domestic counterpart will intensify, potentially producing a vigilante politics authorised by the language of defending civilisation itself.
Key Takeaways
— - A London rally organised by Tommy Robinson on 16 May featured explicit calls to remove Islam from authority and attendees dressed as crusaders, deliberately coinciding with a Palestinian Nakba commemoration.
— - The rally's rhetoric mirrors the civilisational logic of the post-9/11 'war on terror,' which framed conflict through the categories of Islam and Christendom, with officials like George W Bush calling it a 'crusade.'
— - Counter-extremism policies have cultivated a domestic front where citizens are encouraged to police Muslim communities, creating a precursor to far-right vigilantism that now adopts crusader symbolism.
— - The far right's 'great replacement' theory and 'demographic jihad' narratives cast Muslim migration as an existential struggle for Christendom, connecting domestic anti-Muslim politics to military campaigns abroad.
Source: Middle East Eye
